Biden’s announcement is the beginning, not the end, of a real COVID origin investigation

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told me he is preparing sanctions legislation to push for a transparent forensic investigation into the Wuhan lab and “impose costs if Beijing doesn’t allow one.” Lawmakers also want to probe the failures of the U.S. intelligence agencies, including why they were caught flat-footed when the pandemic hit: Why did they have no idea what was going on inside this network of Chinese labs conducting risky research? And that obviously can’t be part of the intelligence community’s own investigation. Some say there’s little likelihood that the intelligence community or Congress will be able to find a conclusive answer on the lab leak theory in 90 days — if ever. Biden alluded to this possibility in his statement, saying Beijing’s actions to cover up and conceal events in Wuhan early on “will always hamper any investigation into the origin of covid-19.” Even if ironclad proof can’t be found, that doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility to keep looking. Along the way we need to completely rethink how we manage oversight of these Chinese labs and all the U.S. labs that work with them. The answers may be complicated. But if it should turn out that most of the evidence points to the Wuhan labs, are lab leak skeptics really going to propose we do nothing and just wait for the next pandemic?