Covid origin2/20/2023 And the starting points of pandemics can be difficult to pinpoint. It is not yet clear whether China fully understands the origin of the virus. There will be questions whether intelligence agencies, given the notorious difficulty of penetrating the Chinese security state, represent the best way of finding the truth. It now falls to the Biden administration to prove that it has the clout and willingness to track down the origin of the virus. It also had a record of shaping science and intelligence for political ends and rejecting inconvenient expertise. The Trump administration, facing election-year blame for its botched handling of a pandemic the ex-President long downplayed, had a strong incentive to find Chinese negligence, whatever the real story was. Pompeo-led effort to hunt down Covid lab theory shut down by Biden administration over concerns about quality of evidence Such concerns are why the Biden administration closed down the probe opened by ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, two sources told CNN’s Kylie Atwood. Leana Wen, a CNN medical analyst and former Baltimore Health Commissioner, said on CNN “Newsroom” that such a probe needed to be based on a scientific method, “which means you don’t go into this with a preferred conclusion and then cherry pick your data to fit that conclusion.” The medical and political priority now is a credible, in-depth, investigation.ĭr. The Biden administration is now facing calls to show it took the possibility of Chinese culpability sufficiently seriously especially since prominent Trump team officials and Republicans are launching a victory lap after last year promoting claims about the Wuhan lab – mostly without any clear evidence.īut Trump supporters also appear to be making another attempt to whitewash history of his disastrous handling of a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands on his watch. While the State Department later said the inquiry had simply been completed, several sources involved who spoke to CNN said it was their impression there was more work to be done. CNN then reported that the Biden administration had shut down a probe launched in the waning days of the Trump State Department to prove Covid-19 came from a Chinese lab. Biden indicated he could support $1 trillion infrastructure plan, Republicans say, as GOP group prepares new offerīiden’s notable public statement came as he felt rising political heat after the Wall Street Journal revealed that several Chinese virologists sought hospital treatment late last year for an unidentified ailment.George Floyd’s family meets with Biden and Harris at White House.White House touts US reaching 50% adults fully vaccinated.The first has long been regarded as the most credible possibility by public health experts – that there was zoonotic spread, possibly from live animals in a “wet” market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, to humans.īut while cautioning there was no definitive conclusion yet, the President said that “one element” of the US intelligence community “leans” toward the possibility that the virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. Its nationalist leader Xi Jinping and the Communist Party have no time for shame of culpability that would mar their core case to the world – that their one party rule is a better fit for the 21st century than democracy – a narrative Biden has publicly vowed to combat.įacing his own political pressure, Biden laid out two theories seen as “likely” by US intelligence on the origin of the virus in a statement on Wednesday. China has every reason to cover up a virus that stained its prestige as a rising and sophisticated power with nearly 3.5 million people dead worldwide. The focus on the laboratory theory in recent days multiplied calls in Washington for the US to make China pay a price for the pandemic, even before the full extent of its origins are known, adding more toxicity to a geopolitical joust that may spark a new Cold War.īut finding answers will be hard. But it would also highlight how his repeated habit of trashing the truth and bending intelligence to suit his own political ends shattered his credibility on this and other issues. If it turns out the virus did escape from a laboratory, former President Donald Trump may be able to claim some vindication. In the US, it leaves both the former Trump administration and the Biden White House facing calls for transparency about their efforts to establish how the virus started and whether politics tainted their investigative efforts. The origin of Covid is now an intelligence operation This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on May 27, 2020.
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