7 Takeaways From 520-page House Report on COVID Pandemic and Government Response
The 520-page report cites examples of public health officials making unscientifically based recommendations — like masking and school closures for kids — violating citizens' trust in their leaders.
The U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic final report, issued Monday, exposes high-level corruption in the U.S. public health system.
The 520-page report also cites examples of U.S. public health officials making unscientifically based recommendations — like masking and school closures for kids — that violated U.S. citizens’ trust in their leaders
“Trust is earned,” wrote Rep. Brad Wrenstrup (R-Ohio), who chaired the subcommittee, in a letter to Congress. “Accountability, transparency, honesty, and integrity will regain this trust. A future pandemic requires a whole of America response managed by those without personal benefit or bias.”
The report, which followed a two-year investigation, covers the “lessons learned” in the COVID-19 pandemic and serves as a “road map” for the U.S. government and the private sector to better prepare for and respond to future pandemics, according to a press release.
Wrenstrup encouraged Congress to “continue and build off this work,” noting that “there is more information to find and honest actions to be taken.”
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) CEO Mary Holland told The Defender, “Thank goodness for the Select Subcommittee’s work to create a comprehensive record of what occurred during COVID.” She added:
“While ‘there is more information to find and honest actions to be taken,’ as Chairman Wenstrup stated, this voluminous report outlines the likely lab leak origin of COVID-19; NIH [National Institutes of Health] and HHS [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] obstruction; rampant fraud in funding mechanisms; and the extraordinary harms to children from U.S. COVID policies.
“This report should be front-page news around the world.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told The Defender that the new report bolsters his argument for why Congress must pass the Risky Research Review Act, a bill he introduced to ensure independent oversight of taxpayer-funded research like the dangerous gain-of-function research conducted in Wuhan.
“As Chairman Wenstrup noted, it is important we continue to build off the select subcommittee’s work next congress, and I look forward to doing so as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee next year,” Paul said.
On Wednesday, the committee will complete its final markup of the report and submit it to the Congressional record.
For their investigation, the committee members held 25 hearings, conducted more than 30 interviews and depositions, and reviewed over 1 million pages of documents.
The report covers more than 100 findings related to various issues surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Issues ranged from COVID-19’s origins to how taxpayers’ money was spent to how well government officials cooperated with the investigation.
Here are seven highlights from the report.
1. The COVID virus most likely resulted from a lab leak
The virus that spurred the COVID-19 pandemic “most likely” resulted from gain-of-function research conducted at a lab in Wuhan, China, the press release stated.
The congressional investigators listed the five strongest arguments in favor of the lab leak theory:
The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature.
Data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events.
Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research at inadequate biosafety levels.
Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with a COVID-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market.
By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced.
The report said that the EcoHealth Alliance — headed by virologist Peter Daszak — used U.S. taxpayer dollars to facilitate gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China. EcoHealth Alliance is a nonprofit that received millions in taxpayer-funded NIH grants, including at least one involving gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The report cited multiple “failures” by the NIH and EcoHealth, including how NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci — failed to oversee EcoHealth’s work and how EcoHealth failed to “timely report a dangerous experiment” to the NIH.
HHS in May suspended EcoHealth Alliance’s government funding after the committee released evidence that the nonprofit had violated the terms of its NIH grant.
2. Extended school closures, lockdowns unsupported by science
Closing schools and keeping them closed long-term was unsupported by available science and evidence. The report pointed out that early data from Wuhan, China, showed that children were unlikely to become seriously ill or die from COVID-19.
That was later confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reported that children made up less than 0.01% of hospitalizations and 0.0005% of COVID-19 deaths between March 1, 2020, and July 25, 2020.
The report also cited data showing that school closures were unlikely to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. “The science indicated that schools were not vectors for viral spread,” the report said.
The report also discussed how lockdown efforts beyond school closures were unsupported by scientific evidence. Lockdowns unnecessarily hurt U.S. businesses and individual citizens — especially kids.
3. Fauci said the ‘6 feet apart’ recommendation ‘just appeared’
Masking and social distancing recommendations lacked conclusive evidence showing they helped curb the spread of COVID-19.
During the pandemic, public health officials were “flip flopping” on the efficacy of masks without providing scientific data, they noted. Forcibly masking young kids ages 2 and up “caused more harm than good,” the report said.
Fauci said during a closed-door testimony that the social distancing guidance of remaining 6 feet apart “sort of just appeared.”
4. U.S. government is failing those injured by COVID vaccines
The committee members analyzed how well the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) — the government’s mechanism for responding to people injured by a COVID-19 shot — is functioning.
They concluded that CICP is “failing to efficiently, fairly, and transparently adjudicate claims for COVID-19 vaccine injuries.” CICP operates under HHS.
Creating a “robust and transparent” vaccine injury compensation program is needed. The report explained:
“Regardless of any claims that COVID-19 vaccines are particularly dangerous, it appears that the federal government mandated them without an adequate system in place to adjudicate the inevitable injuries they cause. This may have significant effects on the trust of the public and damage confidence in vaccines.”
The report authors said it’s not “anti-vax” to debate or discuss vaccine injury. It’s especially paradoxical to label someone injured by the COVID-19 vaccine as “anti-vax.”
“This divisive language,” they wrote, “was a critical misstep of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign which alienated and dismissed people who had experienced rare but life-altering adverse reactions to the vaccine.”
5. HHS obfuscated evidence
HHS officials in the Biden administration “deliberately obfuscated evidence that could incriminate or embarrass senior public health officials.” According to the press release:
“The Biden Administration’s HHS engaged in a multi-year campaign of delay, confusion, and non-responsiveness in an attempt to obstruct the Select Subcommittee’s investigation and hide evidence that could incriminate or embarrass senior public health officials.
“It appears that HHS even intentionally under-resourced its component that responds to legislative oversight requests.”
The report showed images of HHS documents that were incomplete or overly redacted.
6. Fauci’s senior adviser obstructed evidence, too
The report devoted more than 40 pages to detailing how Dr. David Morens “likely destroyed evidence, used personal email to hide from accountability, and acted unbecoming of a federal employee.”
The committee alleged that Morens — Fauci’s longtime aide — destroyed sensitive emails from his private Gmail account that contained messages between Fauci and Daszak.
A memo and over 150 emails obtained by the committee show that Morens spent considerable time and energy avoiding the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) — a law that requires federal agency records to be provided to the public on request with limited exceptions.
In addition to deleting sensitive emails, Morens worked with an NIAID administrator in the FOIA office to strategically misspell keywords that the public might request to be searched, the committee alleges.
The committee said in its press release that Morens “likely lied” to Congress on multiple occasions, unlawfully deleted federal COVID-19 records, and shared nonpublic information about NIH grant processes with Daszak.
7. Daszak also tried to hide evidence from subcommittee
Roughly 10 pages detail various ways that Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance obstructed the committee’s investigation.
For instance, Daszak attempted to avoid providing information. The report states:
“In response to the Select Subcommittee’s request for documents and communications between Dr. Daszak and Dr. Marion Koopmans, a member of the WHO [World Health Organization] origins investigation, Dr. Daszak planned to obstruct the Select Subcommittee by claiming ‘diplomatic immunity’ and ‘WHO privacy rules.’”
Daszak also instructed his staff to reduce the scope and pace of productions. After the subcommittee threatened to subpoena EcoHealth for documents, Daszak wrote, “Once they write to us with issues on our production, we’ll rapidly produce more and try to head this off at the pass.”
The committee compared Daszak’s testimony — “both during his transcribed interview and public hearing”— with available documents. They concluded, “It is likely Dr. Daszak provided false statements to the Select Subcommittee.”