House Committee finds US response to COVID-19 pandemic was 'deeply flawed'

WASHINGTON (TNND) — For two years, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been investigating the U.S. response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus has conducted hearings and spoken to experts about all things COVID-19, and it just released its findings in a new report. The central conclusion is that the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic was "deeply flawed."

That includes assessing how it all started, concluding that "SARS-CoV-2, the Virus that Causes COVID-19, Likely Emerged Because of a Laboratory or Research Related Accident ."

The understanding, backed by testimony from former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield last year, is that it came out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

"I came to believe and I still believe today that it indicates that COVID-19 more likely was the result of an accidental lab leak than a result of a natural spillover event," said Dr. Redfield during a March 2023 Hearing.

The report also found that the six-foot social distancing requirement was not supported by science, a fact later admitted to by Dr. Anthony Fauci during closed-door testimony with the committee.

Fauci has long been a target of GOP lawmakers. During a June 3 hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., held up photos of Dr. Fauci during the pandemic, including from a Washington Nationals game where he threw out the first pitch.

"You got to go and enjoy the game and sit right next to people not following the six feet of distance not wearing your mask," she scolded.

The report also detailed the harmful impacts of school closures, with sharp criticisms of mask and vaccine mandates.

Still, it also found that “The vaccines, which are now probably better characterized as therapeutics, undoubtedly saved millions of lives by diminishing likelihood of severe disease and death.”

"It’s very clear that it saved millions of lives here and around the world," Dr. Fauci agreed during testimony earlier this year.

With Republicans in the majority in the House these last two years, their efforts largely focused on policies with which they disagreed as well as on decisions made by the Biden Administration.

“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted a distrust in leadership. Trust is earned. 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. We can always do better, and for the sake of future generations of Americans, we must. It can be done,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, said in a letter to Congress on Monday.

Democrats believe it was an attempt to take the spotlight off how President-elect Donald Trump handled the pandemic during his first term in office.

For years they have criticized what they see as an attempt by Republicans of politicizing the pandemic. During a March 2023 hearing, Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., sounded alarm bells about the impact.

“Continued attacks on public health officials only serves to further discredit people's confidence in our public health institutions, makes it almost impossible and it's challenging to recruit workers in the field," she said.

Trump’s choices for his public health team all have one thing in common: they raised questions and red flags echoed in this report.