That made US President Joe Biden’s revival of the lab theory last week — by giving intelligence agencies 90 days to get closer to a definitive conclusion on the origin of the coronavirus — all the more meaningful. The origin probe comes at a sensitive time in US-China relations, with both governments showing signs they want to move beyond the vitriol that marked the last year of Donald Trump’s presidency. Since the early days of the pandemic, some US intelligence officials have suggested SARS-CoV-2 — the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 -- may have leaked either accidentally or deliberately from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Chinese diplomats and senior officials at the Wuhan lab have repeatedly denied that the facility was the source of the coronavirus. “If the US intelligence community concludes that the ‘Wuhan lab leak’ theory is the most likely cause of the pandemic, it will see US-China relations plummet to new lows," he said.

Source: Mint June 02, 2021 12:35 UTC