Back in April, Republican Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Mike Braun of Indiana came together to write the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2021, which requires the Biden administration to "declassify intelligence related to any potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the origins of the COVID pandemic."
Sen. Braun in a statement in April called upon the Biden administration to "declassify intelligence" concerning any potential links between the Chinese lab and the coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic. Sen. Hawley added, "The world needs to know if this pandemic was the product of negligence at the Wuhan lab but the CCP has done everything it can to block a credible investigation."
More recently, the theory that COVID came from a lab accident, which was previously widely accepted as a conspiracy theory, is bearing more weight following reports of evidence pointing to the Wuhan lab.
The bill that would declassify intel on COVID-19 origins in the Wuhan lab makes sense, especially when the World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed plans for a "second phase or investigation into the origins of COVID-19," Forbes reported. This investigation will "examine the possibility that the virus may have escaped from a Wuhan lab," sparking further politicization of what hopes to be an independent, unbiased investigation that was previously made difficult by the Chinese Communist Party.
China's National Health Commission (NHC) vice minister Zeng Yixin said he was "shocked" that the WHO would even consider another investigation and insisted that the CCP cannot fully disclose raw data from the early days of the pandemic due to privacy concerns. This is why it is imperative that western intelligence disclose what they know, so the public will finally know where the coronavirus truly came from. That is the goal of the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2021.
However, Democrats in the House have moved to block the bill that would declassify intel on COVID-19 origins in the Wuhan lab, The Gateway Pundit reported. On Tuesday, the House of Representatives held a vote that resulted in 216 to 207, voting against the bill. The measure passed unanimously in May but was now met with pushback.
Republican Representative Michael Burgess of Texas alongside Republican Representatives Brad Wenstrup of Ohio and Darin LaHood of Illinois brought the brought the COVID-19 Origin Act to the House floor for consideration. However, House Democrats voted against the bill on Tuesday night.
In an op-ed for The Blaze, Republican Representative Chip Roy of Texas argued that the Biden administration is continuously fighting to block "misinformation" or anything they believe goes against the leftist agenda.
To the representative, the government seems eager to get more people vaccinated sooner rather than later, even before the vaccines are given full approval by the FDA. While Rep. Roy is supportive of people regardless whether they choose to get vaccinated or not, what he is "not supportive of is the constant coercive bullying by the federal government" to inoculate everyone.
Roy argued that it took about three years to get 50% of the American population vaccinated against polio, another deadly disease. Comparing this to today, wherein 49.3% of the American population is now considered fully vaccinated against COVID-19 just 18 months into the pandemic.
The Texan representative warned that "Scientific haste-even against deadly viruses-can lead to poor outcomes" and challenged Dr. Anthony Fauci to "[provide] Americans with the information they need in order to feel comfortable with the vaccine."
Basic information would begin with transparency, particularly with regards to where COVID-19 truly began.
