The United States will delay the release of records connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and officials claimed the coronavirus pandemic is to blame.

The decision was announced in a memo signed by President Joe Biden and issued from the White House on Friday, the New York Post reported Saturday.

“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure,” Biden said.

The announcement continued:

In the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (44 U.S.C. 2107 note) (the “Act”), the Congress declared that “all Government records concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy . . . should be eventually disclosed to enable the public to become fully informed about the history surrounding the assassination.”  The Congress also found that “most of the records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are almost 30 years old, and only in the rarest cases is there any legitimate need for continued protection of such records.”

…

The Act permits the continued postponement of disclosure of information in records concerning President Kennedy’s assassination only when postponement remains necessary to protect against an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

The National Archives and Records Administration recently ruled that “unfortunately, the pandemic has had a significant impact on the agencies,” and it needed more time to research the material and “maximize the amount of information released,” according to the statement.

US President John F Kennedy, 35th president of the US, and his wife Jackie Kennedy travelling in the presidential motorcade at Dallas, before his assassination. (Keystone/Getty Images).

The more sensitive information will be released in December 2022 and material deemed “appropriate for release to the public” will be released on December 15 of this year, the Post report added.

Per the recent order, all of the records will be digitized.

Kennedy was assassinated while driving through Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

“As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally,” according to History.com.

Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes after the incident at Parkland Hospital. He was 46-years-old, the site read.