More than a year after it emerged and spread around the globe, the coronavirus’s origins remain shrouded in mystery. Treatments have not been fully established, the economic costs are massive, and even the clinical presentation of the disease is highly variable and not well defined. On top of this, China has continued to obscure full inquiries into the beginnings of the pandemic. Real answers are necessary to secure public health for the future.
To find these answers and to holistically address the numerous problems that the pandemic has revealed, Congress should establish a bipartisan commission to obtain a full account of the events of the pandemic and provide guidance for future actions. We must resolve to know with the greatest degree of certainty the origins of the virus, what steps could have been taken to slow its spread, lessons learned from lockdowns, developing effective therapies and vaccines, pandemic preparedness, and importantly, how we can best prevent such pandemics in the future.
