The United States House of Representatives has unanimously passed a bill that would mandate government intelligence agencies to declassify information related to the origins of COVID-19. The bipartisan measure was approved on Friday with 419 votes in favor and none opposed. The bill now awaits the signature of US President Joe Biden, who has not yet indicated whether he will sign or veto the legislation. The Senate had previously approved the bill with a unanimous vote in March.
Although experts have stated that the true origin of the coronavirus, which was first recorded in Wuhan, China in 2019, may never be known, lawmakers have pushed for a clearer picture of the information gathered by the US intelligence community to date. Representative Jim Himes, the Democrat ranking member on the House Committee on Intelligence, emphasized during a brief debate on Friday that “transparency is a cornerstone of our democracy.” Representative Michael Turner, the Republican chairman of the committee, added that “the American public deserves answers to every aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic,” including how the virus was created and whether it was a natural occurrence or the result of a lab-related event.
The World Health Organization has also urged all countries to reveal what they know about the origins of COVID-19. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has stated that “all hypotheses on the origins of the virus remain on the table” and urged countries to resist politicizing the search for the virus’s origins.
US agencies remain divided on their assessment of whether the virus spread to humans from an infected animal or escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after being naturally collected. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told senators during a hearing on Wednesday that no US intelligence assessment has indicated that the virus was man-made. She stated that “there’s a broad consensus in the intelligence community that the outbreak is not the result of a bioweapon or genetic engineering,” but added that “what there isn’t a consensus on is whether or not it’s a lab leak.” The US Department of Energy concluded with “low confidence” that the virus probably escaped via a lab accident, agreeing with the assessment of the FBI but contradicting the conclusions of several other agencies. Robert Redfield, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, argued for the lab leak theory before senators on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institutes of Health have identified an infected animal as the likely culprit.
If signed into law, the bill would require within 90 days the declassification of “any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the Coronavirus Disease.” This includes information about research and other activities at the lab and whether any researchers grew ill.