US Codex
Bill
Notes

Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Government of the People’s Republic of China made multiple serious mistakes in the early stages of the COVID–19 outbreak that heightened the severity and spread of the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic, including the intentional spread of misinformation to downplay the risks of COVID–19, a refusal to cooperate with international health authorities, internal censorship of doctors and journalists, and a malicious disregard for the health of ethnic minorities.

S. Res. 553 · 116th Congress · Mar 24, 2020 · Lineage

RESOLUTION

That the Senate—
(1)
calls on the Government of the People's Republic of China to—
(A)
publicly state that there is no evidence that COVID–19 originated anywhere else but China;
(B)
denounce the baseless conspiracy that the United States Army placed COVID–19 in Wuhan;
(C)
revoke the expulsion of journalists of the United States;
(D)
end the detainment of Uyghur Muslims and other persecuted ethnic minorities; and
(E)
end all forced labor programs;
(2)
condemns—
(A)
the censorship of the Government of the People's Republic of China of doctors and journalists during the early days of the COVID–19 outbreak, particularly the treatment of the deceased Dr. Li Wenliang;
(B)
the refusal of the Government of the People's Republic of China to allow scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assist its response to COVID–19 for more than a month after cooperation was offered, needlessly endangering the lives of its own citizens and hampering the early attempts of the United States to learn more about COVID–19; and
(C)
the duplicitous denial of the National Health Commission of China of the person-to-person transmissibility of COVID–19; and
(3)
calls for the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to retract highly misleading statements of support for the response of the Government of the People's Republic of China to COVID–19, especially his praise for the “commitment from top leadership [of the Government of the People's Republic of China], and the transparency they have demonstrated”.