U.S. House Of Representatives
On Friday, the U.S. House voted unanimously to declassify information on the origins of the Covid-19 virus relying on U.S. intelligence. The bill has now been sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.
The lawmakers voted 419-0, demonstrating unusual unity on the issue. The vote came after a very brief and clear debate about how the deadly virus began and what can be done to prevent future outbreaks.
The intelligence related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China was specifically targeted by the directive to make information public. This was due to the possibility that there were links between the institute’s research and the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was officially declared a global health crisis by the World Health Organization in March 2020.
The intelligence community is still split on the issue, with some calling it a lab leak and others believing in the theory of animal spillover.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently requested that all countries gather information about the origins of the Covid-19 virus and share it with the global health body.
The news comes as the debate over the origins of the Covid-19 virus heats up, with reports from the US Department of Energy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claiming that the pandemic was caused by a lab incident in Wuhan.
China denied such reports, emphasizing that the pandemic is a scientific issue that should not be politicized.
“The origins of SARS-CoV-2 should not be politicized. China has always supported and participated in global science-based origins tracing”, a government spokesperson said.
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