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:

The Origin of COVID: Almost since COVID first appeared, a debate has raged about whether the virus’ 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 (WIV). 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 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’ 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.

Vaccines: The Subcommittee lauded the Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed for the unprecedented speed that it spurred COVID vaccine development.  However, it pushed back against vaccine mandates, citing that the data never showed the vaccines would suppress transmission. It noted the toll the mandates took on the military and healthcare workforces at a critical time.

Vaccine mandates are a complicated and nuanced issue. Some vaccines are referred to as sterilizing vaccines, which completely block transmission. The two most notable are the polio and measles vaccines. There is a strong case for mandates of sterilizing vaccines because they protect society at large.

But it was clear early on that the COVID vaccines were not blocking transmission and there was little indication in the trials that they would.  Therefore, the case for mandating the COVID vaccines was always thin. Healthcare workers seemed to me to be a special case because of their unique exposure to the virus and proximity to patients, many of whom were particularly vulnerable to it.

The report throws a bone to those who have argued that the COVID vaccines had widespread adverse effects by noting the large number of reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and calling for those to be more thoroughly investigated. However, the report also points out the difficulty in discerning correlation from causation with regard to adverse effects. Reading that section, I got the impression that the authors were struggling to mollify many in the Republican base who believe the vaccines were/are dangerous.

Oversight of Financial Aid: I suspect few will be surprised that the Subcommittee found evidence of widespread fraud in the use of the various aid programs the federal government rolled out to dampen the financial impact of COVID. Something I had not heard before was that there was a significant transnational, organized crime component to the fraudulent use of the aid. I recently talked to an FBI agent who told me his office was overwhelmed with COVID aid fraud referrals.

Discounting Natural Immunity: The report discussed that the public health establishment largely discounted natural immunity to COVID. I agree with that observation. I think the motivation was to encourage people not to rely on natural immunity and to get the vaccine.

The Loss of Institutional Credibility: The downplaying of natural immunity was one of several examples of the public health establishment being less than candid with the American people.  I believe those who engaged in this dissembling did so with good intentions. They believed, I think correctly, that the more Americans who were vaccinated, the lower the ultimate death toll would be. Therefore, they believed they were justified in minimizing the importance of natural immunity to encourage people not to rely on it.

But the public health establishment's dissembling did tremendous damage to its credibility and turbocharged anti-vax sentiment. More damage was done as it clung to suppression efforts when it was increasingly obvious to the public that they were not effective and were causing significant hardships for the American people. This loss of credibility by the public health establishment may have repercussions that revibrate long after the effects of the pandemic are gone and may make our ability to respond to the next one even more challenging.