On Friday the House voted unanimously to declassify U.S. intelligence information about the origins of COVID-19, a sweeping show of bipartisan support near the third anniversary of the start of the deadly pandemic.
The 419-0 vote was final approval of the bill, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
Debate was brief and to the point: Americans have questions about how the deadly virus started and what can be done to prevent future outbreaks.
There are still questions about what this declassification really means. University of Minnesota Infectious Disease Researcher Dr. Michael Osterholm told WCCO’s Chad Hartman that while he is all for transparency and finding the origins of COVID, this really won’t matter much.
“I'm glad it happened,” says Osterholm. “I hope that there is a full airing of all the information we have. But again, I come back to a position that I've maintained really since the beginning of the pandemic. Like so many cold criminal cases that are decades old, where they just is not sufficient information to say with certainty that this is what, who did it or how did it happen, I think this is the same situation here.”
Osterholm says China has not been truthful on many issues.
“There just isn't sufficient evidence to say that it was a lab leak or that it was a spillover,” says Osterholm. “I've been agnostic on that. I think that both are still very, very much in play.”
The order to declassify focused on intelligence related to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, citing “potential links” between the research that was done there and the outbreak of COVID-19, which the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
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U.S. intelligence agencies are divided over whether a lab leak or a spillover from animals is the likely source of the deadly virus.
Osterholm says we should be preparing for both a leak and a spillover as a possibility, although he says as of now, the data more closely points to a spillover from a market in Wuhan.
“I keep coming back to the fact that we're not done dealing with these germs and we need to be prepared for both a laboratory leak possibility, and even a manmade virus,” Osterholm says. “Which in this case, we have no evidence that this is a manmade virus as well as the fact that we have to be prepared for more spillovers. I just want to have us keep our eye on the ball. What's really important is protecting us for the future. Assume both lab leaks and spillovers are realities.”
Experts say the true origin of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 1 million Americans, may not be known for many years — if ever. Osterholm agrees that we may never know.
“This is one we're never going to solve. We're just not going to,” Osterholm predicts. “And that doesn't mean I don't want to. Doesn't mean that I wish we couldn't. But I think at this point, we just have to say, please concentrate on what's important. This is about our kids and our grandkids. This is about our neighbors and our families. What are we doing to protect ourselves from the future?”
Osterholm adds that while the COVID pandemic has been horrible, it has killed only 1% of those who contracted it which he credits to the quick development of effective vaccines. Osterholm says a future virus could cause a pandemic that could be much worse.
“If they were to match up with the infectiousness of this virus and have the 15-35% kill rate we see with them, imagine what the future could look like.”
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