I seriously doubt that there was a perfect solution for handling Covid-19 when it appeared in 2020. However, I also wonder if the government actually got anything rights. An investigation into the government’s handling of the pandemic would be very useful in developing a template for handling future pandemics.

On January 19th, The Daily Signal posted a checklist for the House of Representatives committee that is investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic.

The article notes:

After three years, and more than 1 million deaths in the U.S. associated with COVID-19, a comprehensive, sober, and detailed investigation into the federal government’s response is a necessary precondition for restoring Americans’ trust in federal public health agencies.

Specifically, that includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services.  

A Heritage Foundation analysis of the federal public health performance identified 13 pandemic-related topics that deserve detailed congressional inquiry. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

Here are some of the things that need to be investigated:

• Why did the CDC, despite statutory requirements dating back to 2006, fail to modernize and upgrade its systems of data collection and dissemination? Dr. Deborah Birx, former coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force under Trump, has already told Congress that “the No.1 public health issue in the United States today is that there is no comprehensive database or integration of data from laboratories, public health institutions, and clinics.”  
• Why did federal public health authorities send out confusing messaging on the value of masks and mask mandates? Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the CDC and then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams initially insisted, very publicly and sometimes vehemently, that masking was unnecessary or ineffective. Previous studies on masking indeed failed to provide strong support for cloth masking, let alone mask mandates. Between February and April 2020, however, top federal officials did a U-turn, and insisted on the value of a masking policy that they previously opposed. What was the new scientific evidence, then available in the professional literature, for such a dramatic policy reversal in that brief period? Congress should find out.
• Why did federal officials attempt to impose a set of unprecedented vaccine mandates on tens of millions of Americans without weighing the risks and benefits of vaccination for different cohorts of the population, based on age, the acquisition of natural immunity, or an underlying vulnerability to the virus?  Young and healthy persons faced little danger of severe illness or death from COVID-19. Robust findings in the professional literature demonstrated the strength of natural immunity. Recent research on vaccine boosters for young adults concludes that potential harms outweigh the benefits of the vaccination.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. America is supposed to be a representative republic–our elected officials are supposed to represent us and answer to us–it’s time they did.