Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Pool/Sipa USA
NEW YORK (77WABC) – President Joe Biden is asking U.S. intelligence agencies to “redouble” efforts investigating origins of the COVID-19 pandemic within 90 days, in a statement Wednesday.
Biden revealed in the statement that earlier in the year he had the Intelligence Community prepare a report on their analysis of the origins of COVID-19, including whether it came from human contact with an infected animal or a lab accident. The President added that there wasn’t enough evidence to conclude where the virus came from, so he is directing U.S. laboratories to assist with the investigation and called on China to cooperate.
Shortly after taking office, I instructed our Intelligence Agencies to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 virus. Today, I’ve asked the Intelligence Community to redouble those efforts and send me a report in 90 days.
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 26, 2021
“As part of that report, I have asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China,” Biden said in the statement. “I have also asked that this effort include work by our National Labs and other agencies of our government to augment the Intelligence Community’s efforts. And I have asked the Intelligence Community to keep Congress fully apprised of its work.”
The CDC has said that they don’t know the exact source of the disease, but that “we know that it originally came from an animal, likely a bat”.
Despite the push for the truth, Biden admitted that the true origin may never be known due to China’s reluctance to cooperate.
“Back in early 2020, when COVID-19 emerged, I called for the CDC to get access to China to learn about the virus so we could fight it more effectively,” Biden said. “The failure to get our inspectors on the ground in those early months will always hamper any investigation into the origin of COVID-19.”
