U.S. Rep. August Pfluger (R-San Angelo) has joined more than 200 GOP members of Congress to write a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanding an investigation into the origin of COVID-19.
A U.S. intelligence report suggests that a lab in Wuhan, China, could be linked to unleashing COVID-19, according to NBC News. President Joe Biden said in a statement that members of the intelligence community (IC) have not arrived at a definite conclusion on COVID-19's origins.
"Proud to join my Republican colleagues in calling for a complete and thorough investigation into the origins of the #COVID19 pandemic, Pfluger wrote in a May 28 Twitter post. "If the #CCP is indeed found responsible for the leak and cover up, they must be held accountable for the needless loss of life."
MarketWatch reported that Biden has also called for U.S. intelligence to look into the beginnings of the disease that has claimed the lives of millions since it was first discovered in late 2019.
Although intelligence community officials have not yet determined the origin of the virus, they say that two scenarios are the most likely: the outbreak either started naturally with humans contracting the disease from infected animals, or the disease started in a lab that lost control of it.
“While two elements of the IC lean toward the former scenario and one leans more toward the latter — each with low or moderate confidence — the majority of elements within the IC do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other,” an assistant director at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said, according to NBC News. “The IC continues to examine all available evidence, consider different perspectives, and aggressively collect and analyze new information to identify the virus' origins.”
Biden's call for a more in-depth investigation has drawn condemnation from Chinese officials who accuse the U.S. of politicizing COVID-19. Chinese officials add that the World Health Organization (WHO) has already investigated the matter thoroughly and determined that it was "extremely unlikely" the virus came from a Chinese lab.
"The extremely impossible statement of China's 'laboratory leak theory' has been clearly documented in the report of the WHO Joint Investigation," Zhao Lijian, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, told NBC News reporters.
The deadly COVID-19 virus was first identified in the city of Wuhan, China, in late 2019.
Worldwide, 3.5 million people have died from COVID-19 so far, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.