Covid origin transparency call intensifies

With new attention on the origins of the coronavirus, experts and officials called on China Sunday to provide greater transparency and speed inquiries into whether the devastating pandemic began with a leak from a lab.

"There's going to be covid-26 and covid-32 unless we fully understand the origins of covid-19," Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

President Joe Biden has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to "redouble their efforts" to find out where the virus originated.

Hotez said Sunday that the inquiry might not yield much new information because the U.S. had already "pushed intelligence about as far as we can." He suggested that the world needed a sweeping new scientific search for outbreak answers, especially in China.

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"There's a lot going for natural origins," he said of the leading theory, but an independent team of scientists, public health researchers and virologists would need to work in China for six months to a year so the world can "fully unravel the origins of covid-19."

Asked if that could be done without China's cooperation, Hotez said no. "I think we have to really put a lot of pressure on China," he said, including possible sanctions, to secure "unfettered access" for a team of top scientists.

Chinese state media outlets continued to deliver a defiant response.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that intercepted intelligence communications had provided intriguing clues pointing to a lab leak.

"We have signals intelligence and human and other forms of intelligence," he said, that, while not certain in nature, suggest a lab leak is "more likely than not."

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