COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023



The COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 is an Act of Congress that requires the Director of National Intelligence to declassify information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) no later than 90 days after the enactment of the act.

The Biden administration released a report on June 23, 2023. The declassified report rejected several key arguments made by lab leak theory proponents in the weeks leading up to the declassification. The report stated that the intelligence community remains divided, with the overall assessment from most intelligence assets (and the National Intelligence Council) being (with low confidence) that the pandemic is most likely of zoonotic origin unrelated to a laboratory leak. With regards to genetic engineering of SARS-CoV-2 and similar bioweapons-related hypotheses, the report said there was near universal agreement that these had not occurred. The report went on to indicate that the US intelligence community "has no information... indicating that any WIV genetic engineering work has involved SARS-CoV-2, a close progenitor, or a backbone virus that is closely related enough to have been the source of the pandemic."