# Plain Language Summary: COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023

This bill requires the U.S. government to investigate and publicly release information about the origins of COVID-19, particularly focusing on whether the virus came from a natural source or from a laboratory accident. The bill directs intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense to declassify and share findings about how the pandemic started, removing any restrictions that might keep this information secret for national security reasons.

The main impact is that Americans would get access to government intelligence and research about COVID-19's origins that has previously been kept confidential. Right now, there's significant debate about whether COVID-19 jumped to humans from animals naturally or whether it escaped from a research lab in China. This bill pushes the government to put its cards on the table and let the public see what intelligence officials have learned. The government would have a set timeline to review classified documents and release what it can without compromising actual national security.

This affects taxpayers and citizens generally, since you're funding these investigations and have an interest in understanding a pandemic that killed millions and disrupted life worldwide. It could also affect U.S.-China relations, since the findings might implicate Chinese laboratories or research practices. For scientists and researchers, the declassified information could help them understand pandemic risks better and improve future prevention efforts. The bill essentially says that transparency about the pandemic's origins is important enough that the government should overcome its usual tendency to keep intelligence operations and methods secret.

COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023

Hawley, Josh

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.