The United States has now acknowledged that President Biden has repeatedly pressed Chinese President Xi Jinping for transparency about the origins of COVID-19. In response to a new intelligence assessment, the State Department has pointed to two of the main theories surrounding the virus: either it leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab or it was the result of animal-to-human transmission. The intelligence community has yet to be able to make a definitive conclusion.

The Department of Energy's findings suggest that a lab leak is likely the cause of the pandemic, though they were made with "low confidence". This admission is a sign of honest scientific assessment and a departure from an otherwise muddied debate. President Biden and his senior officials have made it clear that they need Beijing to provide more information and allow international investigations to take place in order to determine the virus' origin.

Tensions between the United States