Bill for declassifying data on Covid origins passed by Congress
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The COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 was voted in favor of unanimously by the House 419-0, after being passed by the senate earlier this month.
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Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, arrives for the start of a hearing by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, March 8, 2023 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The US House of Representatives enacted legislation on Friday forcing the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to declassify data relating to the origination of the coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 epidemic.
The COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 was voted in favor of unanimously by the House 419-0.
The legislation obligates the DNI to declassify information on probable connections between the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China and the emergence of COVID-19 within 90 days.
“Transparency on the origins of COVID-19 is long overdue. Americans deserve to know the truth about what the government knew and when,” Republican Leader in the House, Steve Scalise, said in a statement on the bill.
The Senate passed the bill earlier this month, with the House’s passage sending the bill to President Joe Biden’s desk for final approval.
The law was passed by the Senate earlier this month, and its adoption by the House sends it to President Joe Biden's desk for final approval.
This week, FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed that the virus most likely originated in a lab in Wuhan, despite the fact that other US intelligence agencies point to a Wuhan market as the origin of the virus.
Earlier this week, it was reported that WHO officials were frustrated with the US' reluctance to disclose more information on the origins of the Coronavirus.
Read more: US did not provide access to data that accuse China of Covid-19: WHO
A senior expert from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) who requested anonymity told the Global Times, "The origins tracing should be purely a matter of science, but since the beginning, the issue has been mingled with politics. Driven by political interests, we've seen the US － from the accusations made by the FBI to the US Department of Energy － has never stopped politicizing the issue."
Another source based in Beijing who specializes in US studies told the Global Times on condition of anonymity, "On the issue of origins tracing, the US opted to pretend to be deaf in hearing fact-based responses from other countries, and it only wishes to investigate countries that the US suspects, but aren't allowing the international community to investigate itself for being a suspect on this matter."
Read more: US continues to ignore questions on COVID origins: Global Times
On February 26, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US Energy Department had concluded that "the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak."
The report was however labeled as being made with "low confidence," sources say.
