IV 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 909 
Supporting an international investigation into the handling by the Government 
of the People’s Republic of China of COVID–19 and the impact thereof 
on the people of the United States and other nations. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 25, 2020 
Ms. STEFANIK submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Supporting an international investigation into the handling 
by the Government of the People’s Republic of China 
of COVID–19 and the impact thereof on the people 
of the United States and other nations. 
Whereas the novel coronavirus, hereafter referred to as 
COVID–19, emerged in the People’s Republic of China 
and began to spread as early as November 2019; 
Whereas, by late December, dozens of citizens of the People’s 
Republic of China had fallen victim to COVID–19; 
Whereas, on December 30, Wuhan health authorities identi-
fied, interrogated, and reprimanded multiple doctors in 
response to their decisions to warn other Chinese citizens 
of the danger posed by this new disease; 
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Whereas, on January 1, 2020, the Wuhan Public Security 
Bureau questioned eight Chinese doctors who had posted 
information on COVID–19 on WeChat; 
Whereas, on January 1, the Hubei Provincial Health Com-
mission ordered laboratories to stop testing for COVID– 
19 and destroy samples of the same; 
Whereas, on January 2, the Wuhan Institute of Virology 
mapped the genome of COVID–19 in order to inform de-
velopment of public health interventions and medical 
treatments for COVID–19, but the Government of the 
People’s Republic of China withheld genetic information 
on COVID–19 until January 9; 
Whereas, on January 11, the Wuhan Health Commission in-
sisted that there were no new cases of infection by 
COVID–19; 
Whereas, on January 13, the first COVID–19 case outside of 
the People’s Republic of China was announced in Thai-
land; 
Whereas, on January 14, the World Health Organization an-
nounced that the Government of the People’s Republic of 
China had seen ‘‘no clear evidence of human-to-human 
transmission of the novel coronavirus’’; 
Whereas, on January 23, the Government of the People’s Re-
public of China began to implement quarantine measures 
to stem the spread of COVID–19, at the same time as 
the disease had already begun to proliferate throughout 
the world; 
Whereas, on March 11, the World Health Organization de-
clared COVID–19 a global pandemic, with 118,000 per-
sons infected and 4,291 dead in 114 different countries 
at the time of the announcement; 
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•HRES 909 IH 
Whereas the Government of the People’s Republic of China 
has argued recently that COVID–19 did not originate in 
the People’s Republic of China; 
Whereas the Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of 
China has alleged that the United States Army may have 
delivered COVID–19 to the city of Wuhan in the People’s 
Republic of China; 
Whereas the Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of 
China has said, ‘‘China’s endeavor to combating [sic] the 
epidemic has bought time for [international] prepared-
ness’’; and 
Whereas a University of Southampton study found that ear-
lier intervention by the Government of the People’s Re-
public of China could have ‘‘significantly’’ limited the ge-
ographic spread of COVID–19: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) condemns the decision by the Government 
of the People’s Republic of China to hide the emer-
gence and spread of COVID–19 within its borders 
during the initial weeks of the pandemic; 
(2) assesses that the decision by the Govern-
ment of the People’s Republic of China to hide the 
emergence and spread of COVID–19 during that pe-
riod almost certainly contributed to the rapid spread 
of that disease throughout the Indo-Pacific, Europe, 
and the rest of the world; 
(3) finds that the Government of the People’s 
Republic of China should be held accountable for the 
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•HRES 909 IH 
impact of its decision to hide the emergence and 
spread of COVID–19 on the lives and livelihoods of 
the people of the United States and other nations; 
(4) calls for an international investigation led 
by public health officials from the United States and 
other affected nations to determine how the handling 
by the Government of the People’s Republic of 
China of the COVID–19 outbreak prior to March 
11, 2020, contributed to the emergence of the 
COVID–19 global pandemic; and 
(5) calls on the international community to— 
(A) quantify the harm caused by the han-
dling of the Government of the People’s Repub-
lic of China to the health and economic well- 
being of the people of the United States and 
other nations; and 
(B) design a mechanism for delivering 
compensation from the Government of the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China to all affected nations 
for the harm caused by its decision to hide the 
emergence and spread of COVID–19 during the 
initial weeks of the pandemic. 
Æ 
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