Explainer | Why is the US investigating the origins of the coronavirus?

US President Joe Biden’s administration is expected to announce the results of a three-month investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic as soon as this week, potentially aggravating US-China friction as health authorities globally struggle to subdue the ever-evolving contagion.

The move grew out of frustration over restrictions placed on a probe conducted by Chinese and international scientists, organised by the World Health Organization (WHO), which resulted in a report in March that said it was extremely unlikely that the virus came from a lab – a theory linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s study of coronaviruses. The report failed to present any solid conclusions about the contagion’s origins other than an assessment that it most likely spread to people via an intermediary animal.

A handful of nations at the time – including the United States, Britain and Japan – said the findings were flawed by a lack of independence from the Chinese government and access to all data related to early Covid-19 cases in China.

Addressing the World Health Assembly weeks later, US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra called for a phase two of the WHO investigative team’s work, one that would “give international experts the independence to fully assess the source of the virus and the early days of the outbreak”.

Biden ordered the US investigation shortly after Beijing said Washington’s calls for further investigation in China amounted to “political manipulation”. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian reiterated his suggestion that a biomedical research laboratory at the Fort Detrick military base in Maryland be investigated.