In a resounding display of bipartisan solidarity on the eve of the third anniversary of the start of the fatal pandemic, the House voted overwhelmingly on Friday to declassify US intelligence data regarding the COVID-19 outbreak’s origins.
The law was given its final congressional approval by a vote of 419 to 0; as a result, President Joe Biden received it. The White House stated that the issue was being looked at, although it is unclear whether the president will sign the bill into law.
Americans are curious about how the fatal virus first emerged and what can be done to stop future outbreaks, according to a condensed and to-the-point debate in the House.
Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, the head of the House Intelligence Committee, said, “The American public needs explanations for every facet of the COVID-19 outbreak.”
With possible ties between the research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the COVID-19 outbreak, which the World Health Organization labeled a pandemic on March 11, 2020, the order to declassify concentrated on intelligence pertaining to this institution in China.
The question of whether the fatal virus originated in a lab leak or an animal spillover is being debated by American intelligence agencies. More than 1 million Americans have died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and experts warn it may take years if ever, to determine its exact origin.
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Wuhan Lab Leak as COVID-19 Origin
In a hearing on Tuesday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said that the information should help Citizens understand “why the FBI director has said that a COVID-19 lab leak is not just a possibility, but approaches the thought that is likely.
The findings should be made public, according to the ranking member of the committee, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), “ so that the American people can assess the best evidence we have, as opposed to marinating in supposition, speculation and conspiracy theories.”
Days after news broke that the Energy Department had rated the likelihood that the virus spilled from a Chinese facility with low confidence, there is resounding support in Congress for making the material public.
While four other intelligence community agencies apparently assessed the so-called “lab leak theory” with “low confidence” that the virus naturally transmitted from animals to humans and two other agencies are said to be indecisive, the Energy Department joined the FBI in supporting this explanation.
On February 28, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, “The FBI has judged that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a probable lab event in Wuhan.”
The Chinese government, in my opinion, has been doing its hardest to distort and undermine the work that is being done here, by us, the US government, and our close international allies, which is bad for everyone.
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