Politics

Pelosi’s Office Silent Regarding Potential Vote On COVID Origin Bill

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office would not say whether the House planned to take up a bipartisan bill that would declassify any information regarding the origin of COVID-19.

The bill, titled the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2021, passed the Senate via unanimous consent in May. It gives the Office of the Director of National Intelligence 90 days to declassify “any and all information relating to the potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the coronavirus disease.”

Things deemed relevant include any coronavirus-related work performed in the institute’s lab and any information about researchers who became sick in the fall of 2019, including their names, symptoms and hospital visits. The findings would then be presented to Congress in an unclassified report.

President Joe Biden has also called on the U.S. intelligence community to “redouble their efforts,” in order to find the virus’ true origin. His remarks came as additional evidence showed that the virus may have come from a lab instead of evolving in nature.

Though the Senate passed the bill, it has not yet been brought to the House floor. Representatives are scheduled to begin their August recess after this weekend, meaning that the bill may not come up for a vote until after Labor Day, if at all.

Spokespersons in Pelosi’s office did not respond to repeated questions asking whether the bill had a chance of being voted on entirely, and approximately when that would be.