Biden gives deadline to know the origin of the covid-19 0:56
(CNN) -
A growing storm over the origins of COVID-19 in China has explosive political implications for the United States at home and abroad, as well as the mourning of the legacies of two presidents that will be defined by the pandemic.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden told Americans that he had ordered US intelligence agencies to report within 90 days whether the virus did not originate in animals and spread to humans but may have escaped from a Chinese laboratory.
The move deepened a mystery encompassing the pernicious spread of a deadly pathogen, an intricate epidemiological puzzle, the opacity of a totalitarian system, and the bitter undertones of superpower rivalry. It will heighten doubts about the World Health Organization's ability to draw lessons from the current crisis in order to prevent future pandemics.
In the United States, both the Trump administration and the Biden White House face calls for transparency about their efforts to establish how the virus started and whether the policy tainted their investigative efforts. If it turns out that the virus escaped from a laboratory, former President Donald Trump could claim some vindication. But it would also highlight how his repeated habit of destroying the truth and bending intelligence to suit his own political ends shattered his credibility on this and other issues.
The focus on lab theory in recent days multiplied orders in Washington for the US to make China pay a price for the pandemic, even before the full extent of its origins is known, adding further toxicity. to a just geopolitics that can unleash a new Cold War.
But finding answers will be difficult.
China has every reason to cover up a virus that tarnished its prestige as a sophisticated emerging power with nearly 3.5 million deaths worldwide.
Its nationalist leader Xi Jinping and the Communist Party have no time for the shame of guilt that would spoil their central quest in the world: that their one-party rule is a better fit in the 21st century than democracy, a narrative that Biden has publicly promised. fight.
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Facing his own political pressure, Biden presented two theories that US intelligence considers "probable" about the origin of the virus in a statement Wednesday.
The first has long been considered 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.
But while warning that there was not yet a definitive conclusion, the president said that "an element" of the American intelligence community "leans" towards the possibility that the virus has escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.
Biden's remarkable public statement came as he felt mounting political heat after the Wall Street Journal revealed that several Chinese virologists sought hospital treatment late last year for an unidentified illness.
CNN later reported that the Biden administration had closed an investigation launched in recent days by the Trump State Department to show that the COVID-19 came from a Chinese laboratory.
While the State Department later said the investigation had simply been completed, several involved sources who spoke to CNN said they were under the impression there was more work to be done.
ANALYSIS |
Origin of covid-19: why there is new interest in the Chinese laboratory leak theory
The Biden administration is now facing calls to show it took the possibility of Chinese guilt seriously enough, especially since prominent Trump team officials and Republicans are launching a victory lap after promoting claims about it last year. the Wuhan lab, mostly without any clear evidence.
But Trump supporters also appear to be making another attempt to cover up the story of his disastrous handling of a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people under his command.
No 'selective data'
Biden asks Intelligence to know the origin of the covid-19 2:06
The medical and political priority now is a credible and in-depth investigation.
CNN Medical Analyst and former Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen told CNN "Newsroom" that such research had to be based on a scientific method, "which means you don't go into this with a preferred conclusion and then select your data to conform to that conclusion. '
Such concerns are why the Biden administration closed the investigation opened by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, two sources told CNN's Kylie Atwood.
The Trump administration, facing election year blame for its failed handling of a pandemic that the former president has long downplayed, had a strong incentive to find Chinese negligence, whatever the real story might be.
He also had a history of shaping science and intelligence for political ends and rejecting inconvenient experience.
Now it is up to the Biden administration to show that it has the influence and the will to trace the origin of the virus.
There will be doubts as to whether intelligence agencies, given the notorious difficulty of penetrating the Chinese security state, represent the best way to find the truth.
It is not yet clear whether China fully understands the origin of the virus.
And the starting points of pandemics can be difficult to pin down.
“Many of us believe that it is more likely to be a natural occurrence… that it goes from an animal reservoir to a human.
But we don't know 100% the answer to that, ”Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, said at a COVID-19 briefing at the White House on Tuesday.
Chinese state media is turning against Fauci amid Wuhan lab controversy
But the Biden White House has some political exposure on the subject.
Last year, Democrats chided Trump for withdrawing from the WHO on the grounds that it was dominated by China.
The United States rejoined the world body shortly after the new president took office.
If it turns out that Beijing misled the WHO, which downplayed the lab theory, Trump's top officials may claim some vindication.
The White House toughens the speech
In recent days, there has been a notable hardening of America's discourse toward the WHO and Beijing, and the White House has been covering their tracks.
"We have been saying that for a long time China needed to provide more access to the laboratory, cooperate more fully with scientific researchers, and we do not believe they have met that standard," said White House Undersecretary of Press Karine Jean-Pierre, the Wednesday.
Andy Slavitt, the White House covid-19 coordinator, said Tuesday that the United States needed a "completely transparent process from China."
We need WHO to help us in that matter.
We don't feel like we have it now.
His comments raised the question of whether the WHO, in its current configuration, has the diplomatic clout and capacity to conduct an investigation that China is likely to obstruct.
"The World Health Organization is not able to undertake this investigation because, frankly, the Chinese will not allow it," argued Republican Senator Marco Rubio on Fox News on Wednesday.
The Florida senator is one of the Republicans who can run for president in 2024, and taking a hard line with China will be part of the price to enter the primary race.
Origin of covid-19: this is what we know so far
A victory lap
Veterans and supporters of the Trump administration responded to the latest events by stating that they were right to launch accusations against China despite not offering public evidence yet.
We need to know what happened here.
The Chinese Communist Party knows what happened here.
They know who patient zero was.
They know exactly where this started, ”Pompeo said on Fox News Monday.
Pompeo asks reasonable questions, even if he has political motives.
The Chinese government was slow to warn the rest of the world of the unfolding tragedy in Wuhan.
And the WHO appears to have had trouble getting timely and detailed answers on what was happening in late 2019 and early 2020 when the virus broke out.
Indiana Republican Senator Todd Young told CNN's Jake Tapper on Wednesday that the world health body needed to act quickly to restore its reputation by persuading China to submit more data on the origins of the virus.
“I see no other way for the World Health Organization to restore its credibility in the eyes of Americans and many around the world, who have seen them, frankly, place more trust in the leadership of the Communist Party of China and more deference to them than they have in the Western world, ”Young said.
Former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield told CNN's Sanjay Gupta in a documentary released in March that the "most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was a laboratory".
Like other Trump officials, he couldn't prove it.
Trump himself gave the impression in May 2020 that he had information about the origin of the virus, saying: "Something happened."
It came from China.
It should have been stopped.
He could have been arrested on the spot, "Trump said.
The former president, however, frequently promoted conspiracy theories, hunches, and manipulated intelligence and facts to serve his own political argument.
He also politicized the virus for his own purposes.
Therefore, he was not seen as a particularly credible source.
And the question remains: if Trump's team had evidence for the lab theory, why didn't they tell the world when they had every incentive to do so?
Claims that Trump was "right" about COVID-19 also distract from his own guilt for mishandling a virus that he repeatedly said was not a problem.
Whatever the origin of the covid-19, history will condemn Trump for his negligence and denial once he reached American soil.
In fact, it hampered America's preparation early in the crisis because it did not pressure Beijing for answers.
As he sought a trade deal with China to polish his re-election campaign, he flattered the president of China.
Trump said in early 2020 that the Chinese were "working very hard" and "very well."
On Xi, Trump tweeted: "He is strong, sharp, and powerfully focused on leading the counterattack against the coronavirus."
It was only when the impact of the virus became apparent in his own electoral prospects that he changed his mind, reinforcing the idea that he is politically motivated to blame China for the pandemic.
Covid-19
