(Washington) The United States Congress on Friday passed a law that orders American intelligence services to declassify their information on the origin of the pandemic, while the hypothesis of a laboratory leak has returned to the fore.
In a rare moment of union, the elected representatives of the House of Representatives voted for this text unanimously. It had already passed the Senate with bipartisan support and it is now up to Democratic President Joe Biden to sign it into law.
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines will then have 90 days to declassify “any information on potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the coronavirus”.
A new coronavirus, responsible for COVID-19, appeared more than three years ago in this Chinese province before spreading around the world, where it has killed at least seven million people.
The scientific and intelligence communities immediately sought to determine its origin, to better prevent and combat a future pandemic.
PHOTO CAROLYN KASTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Director of National Intelligence of the United States, Avril Haines
Hearing this week in Congress, Avril Haines stressed that there was a broad consensus on the fact that it was “neither a biological weapon nor genetic manipulation”.
But the American intelligence community is divided between supporters of “a laboratory leak”, and those of “exposure to a contaminated animal”, she recalled.
The first hypothesis, hotly contested by the Chinese authorities, has gained credence recently, after being deemed the most probable by the Director of the Federal Police (FBI) Christopher Wray and the US Department of Energy.
In the process, the World Health Organization urged all countries, including the United States, to share their information on the origin of COVID-19.