US to release Covid-19 intelligence review report, Joe Biden

US President Joe Biden has pledged to release the result of the intelligence community’s investigation into the origins of Covid-19, including the possibility of a leak from the Wuhan virology lab in China, unless it contains something he is “not aware of”. Biden had on Wednesday ordered the US intelligence community to “redouble their efforts to collect and analyse information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to me in 90 days” Biden said he had reviewed a report on the origins of the virus, authored by his National Security Adviser (Jake Sullivan) and intelligence officials and that the intelligence community had “coalesced around two likely scenarios”, yet not reached a “definitive conclusion” as to the origins of the virus. Currently, there is “low to moderate confidence” attached to each of the two theories on the virus’s origins, Biden said.

There has been renewed interest in one of the theories of the origin of Covid-19 that suggests the deadly pathogen may have leaked from the Wuhan laboratory, based on intelligence that three researchers from that institution had been sick enough to seek hospital care in November 2019, much before the first case was reported by China on December 8. “The majority of elements do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other,” the US president said. Biden's announcement adds significantly to the growing pressure on China to be more open about the origins of the SARS-COV2 virus, an outbreak of which was seen first in early 2020 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which houses the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

Meawhile, India on Friday backed calls for further investigations into the origin of Covid-19 and sought the cooperation of China and other parties for such studies. External affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the World Health Organization (WHO)-led study was an “important first step”, but more studies were needed to reach “robust conclusions”. Without naming China, he added, “The follow up of the WHO report and further studies deserve the understanding and cooperation of all.”