Rep. McCaul calls COVID-19 origin 'the worst cover-up in human history'

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Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Sunday that COVID-19 "more likely than not" emerged because of a lab accident and accused Chinese officials of attempting to cover up the pandemic’s origins.

"I do think it’s more likely than not it emerged out of the lab, most likely accidentally," McCaul said during an appearance on CNN’s "State of the Union." "Let me say, this is the worst cover-up in human history that we’ve seen resulting in 3.5 million deaths, creating economic devastation around the globe."

Lawmakers have called for further investigation of COVID-19 lab leak theory in recent days after the Wall Street Journal reported three researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology developed symptoms severe enough to seek hospital treatment in late 2019. An early State Department fact sheet noted the researchers had "symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness."

President Biden has directed the intelligence community to conduct further investigation of potential COVID-19 origin theories and report its conclusions within 90 days. The president noted that intelligence officials have yet to conclude whether the pandemic began following human contact with infected animals or because of a lab accident.

McCaul, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Biden’s directive was "long overdue." He argued the intelligence community’s report may be "very inconclusive" because evidence from the lab was "destroyed."

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The Texas lawmaker called for the United States to restructure its supply chain as a "punitive" response.

"My response to this whole thing is supply chain. We need to pull our supply chain out of the region, that being medical supply, rare earth mineral supply," McCaul said.