I
N MARCH, President Joe Biden asked his spooks how the covid-19 pandemic had started. Contradicting claims made last year by Donald Trump, who said the intelligence services had shown him very strong evidence on the matter, they told him that that they did not know. So on May 26th he asked them again, publicly this time, admonishing them to try harder and to report back in 90 days.
This is a direct rebuke to China’s secretive government. When experts convened by the World Health Organisation (
WHO) travelled to Wuhan, the city where covid-19 was first identified, in January and February this year their hosts refused to share crucial data. A senior Biden administration official said recently that he found those efforts to “undermine serious investigations” into the pandemic’s beginnings particularly troubling, and that they left “many more questions than answers”.