A House Republican reintroduced legislation to create a bipartisan and bicameral panel to investigate the origins of COVID-19, reflecting renewed interest sparked in recent weeks.
The select committee, proposed by Rep. Andy Barr of Kentucky, would include 10 members from the House and 10 members of the Senate and would be led by two co-chairs from each chamber of Congress.
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“Over one year and 600,000 tragic American deaths later, we still don’t know the origins of the COVID-19 virus,” Barr said in a statement. “That is why Congress needs to establish a bicameral, bipartisan investigation that will gain the trust and confidence of the American people to deliver the truth about COVID-19.”
Barr, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs committee, previously introduced a resolution proposing a similar panel in April 2020 that would look into the activities surrounding China’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The first cases of COVID-19 were reported in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, and there have been more than 3.5 million deaths around the world attributed to the virus since then, according to Johns Hopkins University.
There has been much debate about the origins of COVID-19.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations have cast doubt on the manner in which the study from China and the World Health Organization was conducted in early 2021. Though the WHO-China report said a jump from animals to humans was most likely, Trump officials, Republican leaders, and a number of scientists have pointed to an accidental escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a highly plausible origin for the pandemic.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, indicated earlier this month he is no longer confident that COVID-19 emerged naturally as he called for further investigation into its origins.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden called on members of the U.S. intelligence community to “redouble their efforts” and bring him information that could help bring an end to the mystery in 90 days.
