U.S. President Joe Biden makes remarks throughout the Nowruz Reception within the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., March 20, 2023.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
President Joe Biden on Monday signed a bill requiring the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify information on any possible connection between a laboratory in China and the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Sejm and Senate unanimously approved the bill earlier this month. The push to make classified information in regards to the origins of the pandemic public comes after the Department of Energy concluded with “low confidence” that the virus was likely the results of an accidental leak from a lab in China.
“In implementing these regulations, my administration will declassify and release as much of this information as possible, consistent with my constitutional mandate to guard against disclosure of knowledge that might harm national security,” Biden said in a statement.
Under the regulations, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has 90 days to declassify all information on possible links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of Covid-19. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been a major center for coronavirus research.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation also said the pandemic likely began with an incident at a lab in Wuhan, China, agency director Christopher Wray told Fox News earlier this month.
“The FBI has been assessing for a very long time that the source of the pandemic is more than likely a potential laboratory incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News. “You are talking about a potential leak from a lab controlled by the Chinese government here.”
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The Wall Street Journal was the primary to report the Department of Energy’s assessment, citing individuals who read the classified report. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan didn’t confirm or deny the reports, but said Biden explicitly requested that the Department of Energy’s national labs take part in the review of the start of the pandemic.
The pandemic began three years ago in Wuhan, China, even though it remains to be unknown how Covid spread to humans. The intelligence community was divided in a 2021 report commissioned by Biden that reviewed information in regards to the origins of the pandemic. Intelligence agencies agreed that each the infected animal and the laboratory accident were plausible hypotheses.
4 unnamed agencies in a 2021 report concluded with a low probability that an infected animal had transmitted the virus to humans.
A recent evaluation by international scientists found raccoon dog genetic material in samples from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market that tested positive for Covid. While the evaluation doesn’t prove that raccoon dogs have been infected with the virus, it provides additional data that’s consistent with possible transmission of the virus from animals to humans.
The scientists took samples from an international database. Subsequently, the samples disappeared from this database. The World Health Organization urged Beijing on Friday to offer these samples.
“This data could – and may have – been made available three years ago,” said WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We proceed to call on China to be transparent about data sharing and to conduct the mandatory investigations and share the outcomes.”