Search Covid Origin

When President Joe Biden ordered US intelligence agencies to report in the next 90-days on whether the Covid-19 virus first emerged in China from an animal source or from a laboratory accident, one would wonder if he may have already known the source. Yet it would be essential to get to the bottom of the story officially and publically verified. Australia is the only country that from day one, stands-by the story of the virus originating from Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Biden has also instructed the agencies to redouble their effort to collect and analyze information that could bring them to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to him in 90-days.

Several agencies are currently split over the two possible sources for the virus that swept the planet killing more than 3.4 million people.The final report, if arrived at, over the next 90-days would have immense implications both for China, which says it is not responsible for the pandemic, and for US politics, where the lab theory has been used by Republicans to attack Beijing.

So far no country including US, orthe WHO, has officially declared the origin of the virus. Hopefully the US agencies will come up with some definitive answers within next 3-months.

In the mean time India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar on his first visit to the U.S. since the Biden administration took over, called the India-U.S. relationship as one of the most important relationships in the world.

In Washington today, Jaishankar sees a real appreciation of the potential of this relationship, saying the challenge today is for countries to learn to work with each other more effectively in a multipolar world. “The United States has not only an enormous ability to reinvent itself; it also has a great ability to assess its situation and re-strategize, in a way,” he said. And added, “Today when it comes to the big issues of our day, we have fundamental convergences, which are societal convergences, which are geopolitical, with the challenges before us and how we translate those convergences into actionable policies.”

Jaishankar also spoke about a world changed by the pandemic. The big take away from the pandemic is when you have a big problem the only way out is global cooperation he said. He also indicated that India really appreciated what they have received including hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assistance from the U.S. government and American private sector as well as, assistance from other countries, which included oxygen concentrators, PPE, medicines and vaccines, to help India fight a massive COVID-19 wave.

The final take from his trip to US opened up areas of manufacturing much needed vaccines, coordinating and sharing of information on origin of the virus, and cementing of QUAD cooperation in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and issues relating to Afghanistan, Myanmar and Pakistan.

In Myanmar the American journalist Danny Fenster, detained by the junta as he attempted to board a plane to leave the country May 24 has still not been released even after US State Department’s request. The Military junta perhaps does not realize the gravity of their act.