The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has issued its final report about the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The report exceeds 500 pages and concludes that government officials engaged in censorship, misinformation, and a coverup surrounding funds that went to EcoHealth Alliance and to the Wuhan Institute of Virology where the COVID-19 outbreak first began.

The report begins with a letter and summary written by Chairman Brad Wenstrup. He concludes that the lab-leak hypothesis is not a conspiracy theory. Wenstrup wrote that EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak should never receive taxpayer dollars again. He stated, “Scientific messaging must be clear and concise, backed by evidentiary support, and come from trusted messengers, such as front-line doctors and patients.”

The HighWire reported in October about a House report that determined HHS spent $900 million on a marketing campaign during the pandemic to spread information that was not supported by science. Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted in one of the hearings with the Select Subcommittee that the six feet social distancing rule just appeared and was not based on science.

Chairman Wenstrup also said Americans have lost trust in the public health agencies and officials as a result of the messaging failures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Wenstrup said, “Americans want to be educated, not indoctrinated.” Wenstrup added that former Governor Andrew Cuomo “participated in medical malpractice and publicly covered up the total number of nursing home fatalities in New York.” The HighWire reported on the Select Subcommittee’s referral to the DOJ for criminal prosecution of Cuomo after he allegedly lied during a congressional hearing.

Wenstrup’s letter said the COVID-19 pandemic response was “plagued” by “rampant fraud, waste, and abuse.” He said school closures “will have an enduring impact on generations of America’s children.” Wenstrup said, “The Constitution cannot be suspended in times of crisis” and “The prescription cannot be worse than the disease.”

Chairman Wenstrup also concluded that Operation Warp Speed was a “tremendous success” and the vaccines, “better characterized as therapeutics, undoubtedly saved millions of lives by diminishing the likelihood of severe disease and death.” On page 301 of the report, the subcommittee refers to a study conducted by the NIH that concluded the COVID-19 vaccine program saved 140,000 lives by May 2021. This is the only resource used to conclude the vaccines “undoubtedly saved millions of lives.”

This study was funded by the NIH and conducted with research help from individuals at Rand Corporation. The study used a model that looked at different state policies, vaccine uptake, and overall outcomes. The authors note there are limitations in the study as confounding factors weren’t accounted for in the model. Racial, ethnic, and low-income populations were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 virus, and these groups were also less likely to get the vaccine at the time the study was conducted.

A 2011 report from the Urban Institute and Center on Society and Health refers to a study showing the disparity between income and health outcomes. The report states: “Poor adults are almost five times as likely to report being in fair or poor health as adults with family incomes at or above 400 percent of the federal poverty level.”

An NIH study from September 2022 concluded: “The results show that the presence of one or more comorbidities is an aggravating risk factor for complications and death after COVID-19 infection.” The model that concluded that 140,000 lives were saved in the first several months after the vaccine rollout was based on low vaccine uptake in areas with more low-income people. Low-income people are more likely to have health problems, otherwise known as comorbidities. That is a confounding factor that was unaccounted for in this study.

The Select Subcommittee report also discusses where the virus originated and states “the weight of the evidence increasingly supports the lab leak hypothesis.” The subcommittee provides evidence that Dr. Fauci and others conspired to promote the proximal origin hypothesis. The report further states a potential motive for downplaying the lab-leak hypothesis and promoting it as a “conspiracy theory” was “an interest by those involved to defend China.”

In a private Slack discussion with Dr. Kristian Andersen, Dr. Andrew Rambaut wrote “Given the sh** show that would happen if anyone serious accused the Chinese of even accidental release, my feeling is we should say that given there is no evidence of a specifically engineered virus, we cannot possibly distinguish between natural evolution and escape so we are content with ascribing it to natural process.”

In a follow-up email, NIH Director Frances Collins wrote, “…the voices of conspiracy will quickly dominate, doing great potential harm to science and international harmony.”

The report also describes rampant fraud under the CARES Act provisions, including the Payment Protection Program (PPP), Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, and unemployment claims. It is estimated that there was $64 billion in fraud connected to just the PPP and about half of that is estimated to have gone to “international fraudsters.”

The HighWire reported last month about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative by the incoming Trump administration to cut wasteful spending from government agencies and programs. The NIH has been called out for spending millions of taxpayer dollars on experiments that serve no public benefit. Dr. Fauci has also been called out for funding gain of function (GoF) research in Wuhan, which many politicians, scientists, and experts believe was where the COVID-19 virus was created.

Politico and the Daily Mail have reported that President Biden is considering several pardons, including a blanket pardon for Dr. Fauci. Dr. Fauci has not been officially charged with any crimes, but he has been accused of lying under oath during congressional testimony when he said he did not fund gain of function research in Wuhan. The Select Subcommittee report did not claim Fauci committed a crime but did say he misrepresented the truth and played semantics with the definition of GoF research.

While the Select Subcommittee did submit a referral to the DOJ for a criminal investigation of former Governor Cuomo, it has not taken that step for Dr. Fauci. President-elect Trump has not made any indication that he intends to target Dr. Fauci after he takes office on January 20, 2025.