U.S. Covid Select Subcommittee Issues Damning Report on U.S. Response to COVID-19 Pandemic
The United States Covid Select Subcommittee has recently issued its final report on the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, following two years of investigations and expert testimony. The report, published on December 2nd 2024, is described by its authors as “the single most thorough review of the pandemic conducted to date.”
It is unlikely that many people will find the time to pore over the 520-page document, approved by a bipartisan committee of nine Republicans and seven Democrats, acting under a House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. However, the summary report makes for grim reading. It exposes fundamental flaws in the official response of the U.S. government and, more particularly, public health authorities, to the Covid crisis.
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During the course of the Covid crisis, people who pointed out these flaws were often treated as wild, unhinged “conspiracy theorists,” marginalised as “enemies of public health,” or actively censored by social media giants at the behest of the federal government. The fact that this catalogue of catastrophic errors, some driven by ignorance and incompetence, and others by corruption and conflicts of interest, has finally found echo in an official investigation may slowly begin the process of restoring public trust in health authorities, and hopefully inspire a more honest appraisal of pandemic policy errors in other parts of the world.
Here are some highights from the findings of the final report of the Covid Select Subcommitte, entitled “AFTER ACTION REVIEW OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward”:
COVID-19 “most likely emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” given its unnatural biological characteristics, the existence of gain-of-function research in a SARS research lab in Wuhan, and the absence of substantial evidence to support the natural origins of the virus. Nevertheless, there was a conscious effort from the highest levels of government to discredit the natural origins hypothesis.
Current government mechanisms for overseeing “dangerous gain-of-function research,” are “incomplete, severely convoluted, and lack global applicability.” NIH’s procedures for funding and overseeing “potentially dangerous research” are “deficient, unreliable, and pose a serious threat to both public health and national security.”
COVID-19 relief funding had inadequate oversight so both federal and State governments “failed to sufficiently identify waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayers’ dollars during the pandemic.” For example, the so-called “Paycheck Protection Program” was “rife with fraudulent claims resulting in at least $64 billion of taxpayers’ dollars lost to fraudsters and criminals.”
The World Health Organisation is criticised on several grounds, including “(shying) away from placing any blame on the CCP (Chinese Communist Party)” for silencing doctors and journalists and failing to report accurate data on infections and deaths.” The report alleges that “Dr. Tedros even went so far as to praise the CCP’s “transparency” during the crisis, when, in fact, the regime consistently lied to the world by underreporting China’s actual infection and death statistics,” and that “the WHO repeatedly relied on false information from the CCP.”
The “6 feet apart” social distancing recommendation, the report finds, was “arbitrary and not based on science.” During closed door testimony, Dr. Fauci testified that the guidance, “sort of just appeared.”
There was “no conclusive evidence” that masks provided effective protection to Americans from COVID-19. Public health officials flipped-flopped on the efficacy of masks without backing up their claims with scientific data, which contributed to a dramatic decline in trust in public health officials. The U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) relied on “flawed studies” to support its masking recommendations, and the Biden administration “exceeded its authority” in mandating masks on public transportation.
Prolonged lockdowns caused “immeasurable harm” not only to the American economy, but also to “the mental and physical health of Americans, with a particularly negative effect on younger citizens.” Instead of protecting the most vulnerable populations, federal and state governments “forced forced millions of Americans to forgo crucial elements of a healthy and financially sound life.” Economic impacts of the lockdowns included large spikes in unemployment, the closure of more than 160,000 businesses, and the disruption of supply chains.
The report cites Dr Anthony Fauci’s testimony that “rapidly implemented travel restrictions” under the Trump administration “saved lives.” The authors of the report appear to accept Fauci’s assessment. Nevertheless, to what extent the imposition of travel restrictions significantly reduced disease burdens or Covid-related mortality is scientifically debateable.
Public health officials “spread misinformation” through “conflicting messaging, kneejerk reactions, and a lack of transparency.” Examples cited include the “unjust demonization” of off-label drug use and the lab leak theory, and public health officials engaging in “a coordinated effort to ignore natural immunity — which is acquired through previous COVID-19 infection — when developing vaccine guidance and mandates.”
The Biden Administration is criticised for employing “undemocratic and likely unconstitutional methods — including pressuring social media companies to censor certain COVID-19 content” to curb what it deemed to be “misinformation.”
The report is critical of President Biden as well as the then head of the CDC, Dr Walensky, for falsely suggesting that the Covid-19 vaccines could block transmission or fully prevent illness.
The report praises Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” program, which “encouraged the rapid development and authorization of the COVID-19 vaccine,” deeming it “highly successful” and “(helping) save millions of lives.” But did the Covid-19 vaccines/therapies “save millions of lives”? That is certainly a matter that is contested among scientists and statisticians. Until we get a much clearer picture of the overall impact of these medical products on people’s health and life expectancy, and reliable data comparing long-term health outcomes for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, these estimates are unreliable.
The handling of the vaccine approval process comes in for severe criticism. The FDA, the report finds, “rushed” approval of the COVID-19 vaccine “in order to meet the Biden Administration’s arbitrary mandate timeline.” Two leading FDA scientists, Dr Gruber and Dr Krause, warned their colleagues about “the dangers of rushing the vaccine approval process and the likelihood of adverse events.” They were “ignored,” and within days, vaccine mandates were in put in place by the Biden administration. Rochelle Walensky, head of the CDC, also overrode the recommendation of CDC’s own Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices not to extend a booster programme to the population at large, putting in jeopardy the integrity of the established vaccine approval protocols.
Vaccine passports are criticised for being “discriminatory” under the “incorrect assumption” that unvaccinated individuals were a “danger to society.” They were implemented when it was already well known that the vaccines were ineffective at stopping transmission. The use of vaccine passports in this context, the report found, is likely to have a negative impact on citizens’ perception of public health.
Vaccine mandates imposed by the Biden Administration, which “coerced healthy Americans into compliance with COVID-19 vaccine mandates,” “trampled individual freedoms, harmed military readiness, and disregarded medical freedom to force a novel vaccine on millions of Americans without sufficient evidence.”
Vaccine injury reporting systems were found to be ineffective at properly collating, analysing, and communicating data on vaccine injuries, undermining public trust in vaccine safety. Similarly, COVID-19 vaccine injury claims have not been “efficiently, fairly, and transparently” adjudicated.
Prolonged school closures were not scientifically supported, given that “children were unlikely to contribute to the spread of COVID-19 or suffer severe illness or mortality.” Extensive, prolonged school closures imposed “historic learning loss, higher rates of psychological distress, and decreased physical well-being” among students. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) supported school closures and were allowed a significant advisory role in the formulation of the CDC’s school closure guidance.
Many of these errors, such as misinforming the public about vaccine efficacy, imposing lockdowns with minimal consideration of their downsides, imposing masks with insufficient evidence, and playing fast and loose with vaccine approval protocols, could have been avoided if there was a culture of professionalism, transparency, and public service in the relevant governmental agencies.
We can only hope that political and public health leaders, as well as ordinary citizens, can learn from the errors and corruption that made the Covid crisis far, far worse than it needed to be. Trump’s proposed nomination of two prominent Covid dissenters to the leadership of the US Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes for Health respectively is certainly a step in the right direction.