Covid and China, the US doubts. Biden asks intelligence for answers

“We haven’t ruled out anything yet.” The White House, through the words of deputy spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre, thus responded to a question from journalists: does the intelligence community believe in the possibility of a deliberate spread of the coronavirus? The spotlight has once again turned on Wuhan and the institute of virology. Jean-Pierre spoke after US President Joe Biden released a statement in which he asked intelligence to “redouble their efforts to arrive at a definitive report within 90 days” on the origin of Covid.

Biden has asked for the delivery “within 90 days of a report” which must also indicate “further possible directions of investigation, with specific questions for China”. Intelligence agencies were asked to collaborate with “national laboratories and other agencies” and to keep “Congress fully informed.” Biden said in the statement that last month he received a first report he had requested from intelligence. on the origins of the virus. “To date, the American intelligence community has focused on two possible scenarios”, he continues referring to that of “human contact with infected animals or the laboratory accident.” “The United States will continue to work with partners around the world. to press for China to participate in a full and transparent investigation “into the origins of Covid, Biden said in his statement, reiterating the US request for” an international investigation based on scientific evidence and providing access to all the relevant data and evidence “. But American intelligence would not have” reached a definitive conclusion “, continues the president, stating that” two elements of the intelligence community would tend for the first, and one for the second “, with the majority, however convinced that “there is not enough information to assess that one scenario is more likely than the others”. At the opening of his statement, Biden also warns of the fat to that “the failure to send our inspectors to the ground in the first months of the epidemic will always compromise any investigation into the origin of Covid 19”. And in this regard he recalls that at the beginning of 2020 he, then a candidate for the White House, asked that teams of the CDC could have access to China in order to study the new coronavirus. Meanwhile, signs of irritation arrive from Beijing: “The morality of the elites Americans is even more degenerate and Anthony Fauci is part of it “. The Italian-American immunologist, who has become the face and symbol of the US struggle in Covid-19, has been severely attacked by the Chinese state media, which do not forgive him for declaring himself “not convinced” of the natural origin of the virus. “He is spreading lies against China”, reads an article signed by the chief editor of the English-language state newspaper, ‘Global Times’, which accuses the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of having “betrayed Chinese scientists. “. To provoke the wrath of Beijing were the words pronounced by Fauci at a symposium in recent days:” I think we should continue to investigate what happened in China until we can understand as best we can what it is happened “, said the scientist, who in the past had said he was convinced of the natural origin of the virus. The American and international press gave great prominence to Fauci’s statements, especially after the ‘Wall Street Journal’ revealed the the existence of a US intelligence report indicating that three researchers from the Wuhan virology laboratory were hospitalized in November 2019 with symptoms attributable to Covid, but also to a seasonal flu. The revelation therefore raised with great force the hypothesis that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory, from which it came out due to an accident. Beijing obviously denied the news of the ‘WSJ’ as “a complete lie, absolutely in contrast to the facts “. And now he accuses Fauci of “joining the war of opinion against China,” which the Chinese media themselves praised last year when criticizing the Trump administration’s handling of the epidemic. , the immunologist tried to clarify the apparent change of position, explaining that he still believes the natural origin of the virus is “highly probable”, but since “no one is 100% sure” he is open to the idea new investigation, which is the official position taken by the United States asking for a “phase 2 study of the origins of the virus” with a new, independent and transparent investigation.