As Pandemic Recedes in U.S., Calls Are Growing for an Investigative Commission

Bills have been introduced in both houses of Congress to create a bipartisan panel, but a leader of the Sept. 11 commission thinks a nonpartisan effort would have more success in the current climate.

WASHINGTON — The lawyer who led the inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks has quietly laid a foundation for a nonpartisan commission to investigate the coronavirus pandemic, with financial backing from four foundations and a paid staff that has already interviewed more than 200 public health experts, business leaders, elected officials, victims and their families. The work, which has attracted scant public notice, grew out of a telephone call in October from Eric Schmidt, the philanthropist and former chief executive of Google, to Philip D. Zelikow, who was the executive director of the commission that investigated Sept. 11. Mr. Schmidt urged Mr. Zelikow to put together a proposal to examine the pandemic, which has caused nearly 600,000 deaths in the United States alone. Now, with the nation beginning to put the crisis in the rearview mirror, Washington is taking up the idea of a Covid-19 commission. Bipartisan bills have been introduced in both the House and the Senate, and have the backing of three former homeland security secretaries — two Republicans and a Democrat — as well as health groups and victims and their families.