What happened?
On 26 May, the US President ordered intelligence agencies to investigate the origin of COVID-19. President Biden said: "I have now asked the intelligence community to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion and report back to me in 90 days." On the same day, the New York Times reported a statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson when asked about the WHO's further investigation in the country. He said: "the authoritative study report with many significant conclusions had already been issued."

On 23 May, Wall Street Journal reported: "Three researchers from Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) became sick enough in November 2019 and they sought hospital care." White House Press Secretary said: "We don't have enough information to draw a conclusion about the origins." She also said: "There is a need to look into a range of options. We need data, we need an independent investigation, and that's exactly what we've been calling for."

What is the background?
First, the US insistence to trace the origin of the virus. The Trump administration blamed China for the pandemic. Trump also referred to COVID-19 as the "China virus" or the "Wuhan virus." The administration also floated the idea without providing evidence that the virus may have accidentally escaped a lab in China. Before leaving office, Mike Pompeo also released a fact sheet over the origin of the virus. The document stated: "The US government had reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illnesses." After the WHO investigation failed to draw definitive insights, earlier this month, health officials in the Biden administration renewed their request for a stringent inquiry. On 13 May, 18 scientists revealed in the 'Science' journal that they didn't have enough evidence to indicate a "natural or accidental laboratory leak" origin. The health experts began suggesting that "accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable theories."

Second, international responses outside the US on the origin question. Amid the pandemic, Australia, the UK, and Japan also have demanded a more transparent and international investigation. These countries expressed concern over the WHO's report and highlighted that the investigation team was not given timely access to relevant data. 

Third, the failure of WHO's China mission to effectively address the origin question. On 30 March, WHO released a joint report with China, which dismissed the lab leak theory, calling it an "extremely unlikely" situation. Later authorities also refused to share raw data on early covid cases to perform analysis. The report was highly criticized for not being transparent. WHO Director-General also said: "I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough" and demanded further investigation for the lab-leak theory. 

Fourth, China's response so far. Since the beginning, Beijing has been dismissive about the lab leak hypothesis and has pushed a theory that the virus was manufactured in an American lab or was brought into Wuhan through cold chain products. China had halted the visit of experts to Wuhan and has demanded investigation outside China. 

Fifth, the research on coronavirus at Wuhan lab. The WIV, a biosafety level 4 lab, had been doing research on bat coronavirus for several years. Wall Street Journal reported, Dr Shi Zhengli, WIV's leading bat coronavirus expert, "has publicly described doing experiments, including in 2018 and 2019, to see if various bat coronaviruses could use a certain spike protein on their surfaces to bind to an enzyme in human cells known as ACE2. That is how both the SARS virus and SARS-CoV-2 infect humans."

What does it mean?
Biden's robust intervention in analyzing the COVID-19 origin, due to an increase in pressure from the civil and political society, is likely to receive support across the political spectrum. China still remains non-transparent over the question of the virus origin, to the dismay of the international community amid rising demand over the issue of origin.