Covid 19 coronavirus: Wuhan lab leak theory revisited in US intel investigation

A security official moves journalists away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after a World Health Organisation investigative team arrived in Wuhan early this year. Photo / AP

US President Joe Biden has this week ordered American intelligence officials to "redouble" their efforts to investigate the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, including any possibility the trail might lead to a Chinese laboratory.

After months of minimising that possibility as a fringe theory, the Biden administration is joining worldwide pressure for China to be more open about the outbreak, aiming to head off Republican complaints the president has not been tough enough as well as to use the opportunity to press China on alleged obstruction.

Biden asked US intelligence agencies to report back within 90 days. He directed US national laboratories to assist with the investigation and the intelligence community to prepare a list of specific queries for the Chinese government.

The president also called on China to cooperate with international probes into the origins of the pandemic.

Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have promoted the theory that the virus emerged from a laboratory accident rather than naturally through human contact with an infected animal in Wuhan, China.

Biden said the majority of the intelligence community had "coalesced" around those two scenarios but "do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other".

He revealed that two agencies lean toward the animal link and "one leans more toward" the lab theory, "each with low or moderate confidence".

"The United States will also keep working with like-minded partners around the world to press China to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence," said Biden.

US President Joe Biden has ordered a new intelligence investigation into the origins of Covid-19. Photo / AP

Biden's statement came after weeks of the administration endeavouring to avoid public discussion of the lab leak theory and privately suggesting it was far fetched.

In another sign of shifting attitudes, the US Senate approved two Wuhan lab-related amendments without opposition, attaching them to a largely unrelated bill to increase US investments in innovation.

One of the amendments, from Senator Rand Paul, would block US funding of Chinese "gain of function" research on enhancing the severity or transmissibility of a virus.

Paul has been critical of Dr Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious-disease expert, and aggressively questioned him at a recent Senate hearing over the work in China.

The other amendment was from Senator Joni Ernst and it would prevent any funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Both were approved without roll call votes as part of the broader bill that is still under debate in the Senate.

Dr Anthony Fauci speaks during a US Senate Committee. Photo / AP

As for the origin of pandemic, Fauci, a White House coronavirus adviser, said this week that he and most others in the scientific community "believe that the most likely scenario is that this was a natural occurrence, but no one knows that 100 per cent for sure".

"And since there's a lot of concern, a lot of speculation and since no one absolutely knows that, I believe we do need the kind of investigation where there's open transparency and all the information that's available, to be made available, to scrutinise," Fauci said at a Senate hearing.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the White House supports a new World Health Organisation investigation in China, but she added that an effective probe "would require China finally stepping up and allowing access needed to determine the origins".

Biden still held out the possibility that a firm conclusion may never be reached, given the Chinese government's refusal to fully cooperate with international investigations.

"The failure to get our inspectors on the ground in those early months will always hamper any investigation into the origin of Covid-19," he said.

Administration officials continue to harbour strong doubts about the lab leak theory. Rather, they view China's refusal to cooperate in the investigation — particularly on something of such magnitude — as emblematic of other irresponsible actions on the world stage.

Privately, administration officials say the end result, if ever known, won't change anything, but note China's stonewalling is now on display for the world to see.

A member of a WHO investigative team visits the Hubei Animal Disease Control and Prevention Centre in Wuhan. Photo / AP

The US State Department, which ended one Trump-era probe into the Chinese lab theory this spring, said it was continuing to cooperate with other government agencies and pressed China to cooperate with the world.

"China's position that their part in this investigation is complete is disappointing and at odds with the rest of the international community that is working collaboratively across the board to bring an end to this pandemic and improve global health security," said spokesman Ned Price.

Research into the origins of the virus is critically important, said Arinjay Banerjee, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organisation in Saskatchewan, Canada, because: "If you don't know where it came from, how are you going to stop it from spreading again?"

"The great probability is still that this virus came from a wildlife reservoir," he said, pointing to the fact that spillover events – when viruses jump from animals to humans – are common in nature, and that scientists already know of two similar beta coronaviruses that evolved in bats and caused epidemics when humans were infected, SARS1 and MERS.

"The evidence we so far have suggests that this virus came from wildlife," he said.

However, the case is not completely closed.

"There are probabilities, and there are possibilities," said Banerjee. "Because nobody has identified a virus that's 100 per cent identical to SARS-CoV-2 in any animal, there is still room for researchers to ask about other possibilities."

Andy Slavitt, Biden's senior adviser for the coronavirus, said Tuesday that the world needs to "get to the bottom ... whatever the answer may be."

"We need a completely transparent process from China; we need the WHO to assist in that matter," Slavitt said. "We don't feel like we have that now."