Biden: 'We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins'

President Joe Biden said America needs to determine the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent future outbreaks when he announced that he signed the "COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023" into law with unanimous congressional support.

"We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics," Biden said Monday. 

Biden also said that he directed the U.S. intelligence Community in 2021 to probe COVID's origins, and he pledged that his administration would "continue to review all classified information relating to COVID–19’s origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

The new law requires U.S. National Intelligence Director Avril Haines to declassify all information about the pandemic's origins and its link to the lab in Wuhan, China. 

However, Biden also said some of the information may be withheld due to national security concerns. 

"In implementing this legislation, my Administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security," he wrote.

The new law comes weeks after the FBI and the Energy Department announced that the virus likely came from a lab leak in China.