Intelligence told White House they have unexamined evidence on coronavirus origins: report

Intelligence officials told the White House that they have a large amount of unexamined evidence related to the origins of COVID-19, which is part of what prompted President Biden to announce publicly he asked them “redouble their efforts” to find the source of the pandemic.

The New York Times reported Thursday that officials planned to use computer analysis to figure out if the virus accidently leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, to track the movements of lab workers and examine patterns of the outbreak. Officials would not offer any details on the new evidence to the Times or the type of computer analysis that would be conducted.

Biden asked intelligence officials to produce a report on the findings within 90 days, he announced on Wednesday.

A senior administration official told the Times that the federal government would tap national labs and other scientific resources that previously were not involved in this effort.

Efforts to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic began under former President Trump, who often voiced his criticism of China and touted the possibility that the virus came from a Wuhan lab.

This week, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a U.S. intelligence report, that three researchers with the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been hospitalized in November 2019, fueling the debate the virus had escaped the lab and that it could have been spreading at least one month earlier than China had initially reported.

The Hill has reached out to the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for comment. 

Updated 9:51 p.m.