CV NEWS FEED // The U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has released its final report, concluding that COVID-19 almost certainly originated from a lab in China and that many COVID restrictions did more harm than good.
The subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-OH, a Catholic and medical doctor who is retiring at the end of his current Congressional term.
“During a time of intense partisanship, the Select Subcommittee had bipartisan consensus across multiple topics,” Wenstrup wrote in a letter enclosed at the beginning of the over-500-page report.
“The possibility that COVID-19 emerged because of a laboratory or research related accident is not a conspiracy theory,” the lawmaker noted.
“COVID-19 most likely emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” the House report stated. “By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced.”
FOX News noted that per the report, “the subcommittee learned that the virus had a biological characteristic that is not found in nature.”
Furthermore, data cited in the House report “showed all COVID-19 cases stemming from a single introduction to humans,” FOX indicated – another finding that suggests the virus likely leaked from a lab.
FOX continued:
The report also noted that China’s foremost SARS research lab is in Wuhan, “which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research at inadequate biosafety levels,” and that researchers at the lab “were sick with a COVID-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market.”
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In its summary of the report’s findings, The House Oversight Committee noted that another reason for the “lab leak theory” being the most likely explanation for COVID’s origin is that “Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab.”
The lab, the committee explained, “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,” the committee’s summary added.
In addition to its insights on COVID’s origins, the report also seemed to conclude that many government restrictions imposed in the name of protecting the public from the virus were both enacted contrary to scientific evidence and had either neutral or negative outcomes for the American people.
Again from the Oversight Committee’s summary:
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.”
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“There was no conclusive evidence that masks effectively protected Americans from COVID-19,” the summary went on. “Public health officials flipped-flopped on the efficacy of masks without providing Americans scientific data — causing a massive uptick in public distrust.”
“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,” the summary also noted:
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.
Likely in response to the flawed guidance given by public health officials, Wenstrup wrote in his introductory letter to the lawmakers that, going forward, they “must work to regain American’s trust.”
“Americans want to be educated, not indoctrinated,” Wenstrup noted.
