(CNN) President Joe Biden's instructions to the US intelligence community to redouble its efforts in investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic came on the heels of intelligence officials informing the White House that they possessed unreviewed evidence necessitating greater computer analysis that could potentially provide answers, The New York Times reported Thursday. The paper cited senior administration officials, who opted not to detail the new evidence or the computational analysis to be done. The disclosure raises the question of whether the government fully examined existing intelligence and public health information in seeking out the virus's emergence. ODNI spokesperson Amanda Schoch reiterated what Biden had said Wednesday, that there is a difference of opinion among various intelligence agencies and their degrees of confidence in the theories. Administration officials told the Times that the White House wants US allies to participate more strongly in investigating the possibility that the virus originated in a Chinese lab, a scenario that had previously been considered less likely.

Source: CNN May 28, 2021 03:33 UTC