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- The Senate passed a bill to declassify what the US government knows about the origins of COVID-19.
- Earlier Wednesday, President Joe Biden gave US intel 90 days to produce a report on the matter.
- Calls to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, especially the lab-leak theory, have grown.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
The Senate unanimously passed a bill Wednesday night that will require the director of national intelligence to declassify any information related to the origins of COVID-19, including on the lab at the center of the lab-leak theory.
Introduced by Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Mike Braun, the bill received rare bipartisan support as calls grow to ramp up investigations into the origins of the virus.
“The American people deserve the truth about the origins of covid. Tonight the Senate unanimously adopted my bill w/ @SenatorBraun to declassify what US government knows,” Hawley said on Twitter after the vote.
Earlier Wednesday, President Joe Biden said he was giving the intelligence community 90 days to produce a report on whether the coronavirus emerged from an infected animal or from a leak at a lab in Wuhan, China. The lab-leak theory, which experts have said in the past was not likely, has come under increasing scrutiny.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that US intelligence discovered three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized in November 2019 with COVID-19 symptoms.
A month-long investigation by a team formed by the World Health Organization concluded earlier this year that transmission from an animal to a human was the “most likely” origin, but said a lab leak could not be ruled out.
Other experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have also said the lab-leak theory is possible and should be investigated further.
Have a news tip? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@insider.com.
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