This bill requires the government's intelligence agency to release information it has been keeping secret about whether the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China was connected to how COVID-19 started. Right now, much of what intelligence agencies know about this topic is classified, meaning it's kept from the public. The bill says the Office of the Director of National Intelligence must take all the information they have on this subject and make it public in a report to Congress, removing only the parts that would reveal how the government gathers intelligence or protect secret sources.

Essentially, this is about transparency and accountability. The American public has been debating where COVID-19 came from, and this bill aims to let people see what the government actually knows about a potential connection to this specific research facility. The only information that would stay hidden is material that could compromise national security by exposing intelligence methods or sources—for example, if revealing something would endanger a spy or expose how the U.S. collects information.

COVID–19 Origin Act of 2023

Gallagher, Mike

COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 This bill requires the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to declassify all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of COVID-19. The ODNI must submit to Congress an unclassified report with all such information with redactions only as necessary to protect sources and methods.