RIGHT SPEAK: House Subcommittee Issues Final After-Action Report on COVID; House Panel On COVID Issues Report, Concludes Pandemic Started In Wuhan Lab , and other C-Virus related stories

House Subcommittee Issues Final After-Action Report on COVID:

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic recently issued its final After Action Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic. It is an exhaustive 557-page document covering almost every aspect of the pandemic. I could not find any record of the official vote of the subcommittee on the issuance of the report, but based on public comments by the members, it was likely approved along party lines. The report, unfortunately, was written from a distinctly partisan viewpoint, which will undermine its value. However, once you set aside the gratuitous partisan grandstanding, the report has a great deal of important information.

Here are some of the key takeaways.

Origin of COVID: Almost since COVID first appeared, a debate has raged about whether the virus’s emergence was zoonotic (transferred from an animal to a human) or whether it was the result of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The subcommittee concluded that “the weight of the evidence increasingly supports the lab leak hypothesis.” If anything, I would say that is an understatement. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where the zoonotic emergence supposedly occurred, is about seven miles from the WIV. For a coronavirus to have naturally evolved within seven miles of a lab working on gain-of-function (GOF) research on coronaviruses would be one of the most remarkable coincidences of all time.

The subcommittee also amassed an impressive body of evidence that some officials and researchers attempted to discredit the lab leak theory out of fear of political blowback on the federal government’s involvement in funding GOF research. The report describes how the World Health Organization downplayed the possibility of lab leaks because of international political considerations, highlighting a structural shortcoming that affects that agency’s efficacy.

The report also highlights the difficulty in regulating this extremely hazardous type of research. Both the Trump and Biden administrations tightened rules on GOF research, but it is very difficult for laypeople to know whether enough has been done. One clear conclusion from this episode is that we cannot rely on the research community to regulate itself.

Suppression Tactics: The report argues that most of the non-medical suppression efforts, principally masks, social distancing, and lockdowns, had, at best, a limited impact on the spread of the virus and probably did more harm than good. It also suggests that public health officials had little scientific data to back up their guidance concerning their non-medical suppression efforts.

I mostly agree with the report’s conclusions in this area. However, the report suggests there was a sinister aspect to these recommendations, or that they were, at least, the result of bureaucratic hubris. I disagree with that take. I think public health officials were overwhelmed with the potential magnitude of the pandemic, and at the time, they were still uncertain about the virus’s lethality. However, I agree that the public health establishment and other groups, especially the teachers’ unions, clung to these strategies long after it was clear that their efficacy was minimal. --->READ MORE HERE

David Zalubowski/AP

House panel on COVID issues report, concludes pandemic started in Wuhan lab:

The GOP-led panel wrapped up a two-year investigation with criticism for lockdowns, vaccines, social distancing and masking mandates.

A House panel’s two-year investigation on COVID-19 concluded that the virus accidently leaked from a lab in China, part of a wide-ranging report that chided the U.S. pandemic response as “deeply flawed” with “rampant fraud, waste and abuse.”

Members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic said they hoped the 520-page review will “serve as a road map for Congress, the Executive Branch, and the private sector to prepare for and respond to future pandemics.”

The Republican-led panel reported that COVID-19 “most likely emerged” at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, citing biological characteristics of the virus and illnesses among researchers at the facility in fall 2019, weeks before the disease began spreading globally.

The origins of the virus remain unsettled science, with many researchers still favoring the theory of animal-to-human transmission, likely at a wet market in Wuhan.

“When it came from to the nature versus lab argument, there was far more forensics on the lab side,” subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter to Congress.

According to the report, the response included mitigation failures such as lockdowns, including school closures. The report also criticized masking, six-foot social distancing and vaccine mandates.

The panel praised some efforts, including the quick development of COVID-19 tests and travel restrictions that at least delayed the disease’s spread into the U.S. At the time, critics of the travel restrictions, enacted by then-President Donald Trump, said they were xenophobic. --->READ MORE HERE