Massive New Government Report Details Failures Of COVID Mandates, Lockdowns
While many are happy to put the memory of COVID policies and mandates behind them, quietly dismissing their prior support of pointless government overreach, thankfully there are still some efforts to detail what happened during the pandemic.
Perhaps the most important effort came from the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus, a group whose mission was to investigate how the government handled COVID. From start to finish.
Just this week, it released its final report after completing its investigations, a 500-page explanation of the best available information on what exactly happened. And boy, oh boy, does it not reflect well on anyone, from Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden and their many allies on down.
President Joe Biden. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
COVID Committee Report Is Scathing Indictment Of Government's Response
There are dozens of important conclusions reached in the report, not the least of which is that the virus almost certainly came out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, thanks in large part to gain-of-function research. What led to that conclusion? Several obvious facts that were uncovered throughout the investigation:
- "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."
That's not surprising, at this point, it would be stunning if new evidence emerged showing otherwise. But the next important conclusion strikes at the heart of what makes the lab leak discussion so important; Anthony Fauci and his "expert" friends lied about it.
"'The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2' publication — which was used repeatedly by public health officials and the media to discredit the lab leak theory — was prompted by Dr. Fauci to push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated in nature," they write.
So Fauci prompted the creation and release of a paper with inaccurate information because he and his allies were incentivized to claim that SARS-CoV-2 came from nature. A lab leak would implicate their past positions, make their profession look bad, and undermine what "experts" said about the pandemic moving forward. So they did their best to hide the truth and provide cover for themselves, their friends, and their media partners. And anyone who pointed out the obvious mistakes and falsehoods was labeled a "science denier" or "conspiracy theorist" in the process.
Thankfully, some of the people involved in this deception are and will be out of government soon. And as they explain, the corruption and institutional rot outsiders noticed was inherent to the National Institutes of Health.
"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. Further, NIH fostered an environment that promoted evading federal record keeping laws — as seen through the actions of Dr. David Morens and ‘FOIA Lady’ Marge Moore," they write.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya can't come soon enough.
READ: New NIH Head Jay Bhattacharya Could Have Changed Everything With COVID
COVID Led To Rampant Fraud, Corruption And Made Up Mandates
Other important conclusions focused on the incredible amount of fraud and corruption resulting from the government's disastrous response.
"PAYCHECK PROTECTION PROGRAM: The Paycheck Protection Program — which offered essential relief to Americans in the form of loans that could be forgiven if the funds were used to offset pandemic-era hardships — was rife with fraudulent claims resulting in at least $64 billion of taxpayers’ dollars lost to fraudsters and criminals," the report reads.
$64 billion down the drain. And it gets worse.
"FRAUDULENT UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS: Fraudsters cost the American taxpayer more than $191 billion dollars by taking advantage of the federal government’s unemployment system and exploiting individuals’ personally identifiable information."
So $64 billion in fraud from the Paycheck Protection Program, and another $191 billion lost as a result of fraudulent unemployment claims. A cool $255 billion, vanished into thin air during the pandemic. Because the government panicked based on Fauci's incompetence, started printing money we didn't have and handing it out to people they couldn't vet, then was too bloated, dumb, and hapless to get it back. Sounds about right.
It's not just financial fraud that cost America billions; fraudulent policy recommendations were equally damaging. The report found that the wave of social distancing hysteria that led to signs and floor stickers and business closures and capacity restrictions was "not based on science."
"SOCIAL DISTANCING: The ‘6 feet apart’ social distancing recommendation — which shut down schools and small business across the country — was arbitrary and not based on science. During closed-door testimony, Dr. Fauci testified that the guidance, 'sort of just appeared.'"
Even more frustrating was the reports' acknowledgment that there was no evidence supporting mask mandates. And the lack of evidence didn't stop public health officials from flip-flopping on their public statements anyway.
"MASK MANDATES: There was no conclusive evidence that masks effectively protected Americans from COVID-19. Public health officials flipped-flopped on the efficacy of masks without providing Americans scientific data — causing a massive uptick in public distrust."
Similarly, lockdowns were found to be an ineffective, monstrously harmful policy that permanently hurt younger people based on a complete, purposeful misdirection of priorities.
"LOCKDOWNS: Prolonged lockdowns caused immeasurable harm to not only the American economy, but also to the mental and physical health of Americans, with a particularly negative effect on younger citizens. Rather than prioritizing the protection of the most vulnerable populations, federal and state government policies forced millions of Americans to forgo crucial elements of a healthy and financially sound life."
No kidding. And all of these policies and mandates were supported by misinformation. That's not an opinion, that's what the committee's report concluded.
"COVID-19 MISINFORMATION: Public health officials often spread misinformation through conflicting messaging, kneejerk reactions, and a lack of transparency. In the most egregious examples of pervasive misinformation campaigns, off-label drug use and the lab leak theory were unjustly demonized by the federal government."
This misinformation was pervasive, it was everywhere, because it supported the "correct" conclusions. Misinformation in service of the proper ideology and set of ideologically motivated mandates was not only acceptable, it was encouraged. Fauci said he lied about what he believed the threshold for herd immunity would be in order to encourage more people to get vaccinated. They didn't care who they hurt in the process, as long as the public listened to them.
And speak of the COVID vaccines:
"VACCINE MANDATES: Vaccine mandates were not supported by science and caused more harm than good. The Biden Administration coerced healthy Americans into compliance with COVID-19 vaccine mandates that trampled individual freedoms, harmed military readiness, and disregarded medical freedom to force a novel vaccine on millions of Americans without sufficient evidence to support their policy decisions."
Couldn't have said it better myself. And even worse, they then used the power of the government to coerce censorship of those who criticized them.
"The Biden Administration even employed undemocratic and likely unconstitutional methods — including pressuring social media companies to censor certain COVID-19 content — to fight what it deemed misinformation."
The dystopian circle of COVID. The Biden administration used censorship to enforce their inaccurate point of view, lying about the actual science while labeling correct views "misinformation." Inexcusable and all too predictable.
Unsurprisingly, the report also stated that the administration and the Department of Health and Human Services purposefully ignored requests or delayed their responses to "obstruct" the investigation. Because it made them look bad.
"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."
So the government presided over years-long fraud with regards to financial outlays during the pandemic, lied about the lab leak, spread misinformation while claiming to fight it, got masks, lockdowns and vaccine mandates wrong, then purposefully obstructed those hoping to bring their abuses to light.
An absolutely indefensible set of actions that would have been excoriated in the media, had they been (mostly) done by the other political party. Instead, this report has received little attention because the media was complicit in the harm caused by the federal government. In fact, the media encouraged and promoted it. And no one's ever apologized for any of it.