Michael Abrahams | COVID-19: A pandemic of deception

In December 2024, the select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic concluded its two-year investigation into the COVID-19 pandemic. It released a final report titled After Action Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward.

Since February 2023, the select subcommittee sent more than 100 investigative letters, conducted more than 30 transcribed interviews and depositions, held 25 hearings and meetings, reviewed more than one million pages of documents, and produced a 520-page final report. The investigation revealed high levels of corruption in America’s public health system, as well as misinformation, censorship, and cover-ups.

For example, the select subcommittee concluded that COVID-19 most likely emerged from a “lab leak” in Wuhan. China’s foremost SARS research lab is located in that city, and the facility has a history of conducting gain-of-function research (a medical research technique that genetically modifies an organism to enhance its biological functions) at inadequate biosafety levels. It was noted that Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers fell ill with a COVID-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market it was said to have originated from. Also, the virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature.

SUPPRESS NARRATIVES

However, there was a concerted effort to suppress narratives suggesting that a lab mishap caused the pandemic. Public health officials and the media in America, prompted by Dr Anthony Fauci (former chief medical adviser to the president of the United States), repeatedly used “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” publication to discredit the lab-leak theory and pushed the preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated in nature.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also came under scrutiny, with the subcommittee calling the organisation’s response to the pandemic “an abject failure because it caved to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party and placed China’s political interests ahead of its international duties”. It was also determined that the “six feet apart” social distancing recommendation was arbitrary and not based on science. During closed-door testimony, Dr Fauci admitted that the guidance “sort of just appeared”. There was also no conclusive evidence that masks effectively protected Americans from COVID-19. The report also stated that “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”.

For example, regarding the societal impact of decisions to close schools, the subcommittee claimed that the “science” never justified prolonged school closures, as children were unlikely to contribute to the spread of COVID-19 or suffer severe illness or mortality. However, as a result of school closures, children experienced “historic learning loss, higher rates of psychological distress, and decreased physical well-being”.

SPREADING MISINFORMATION

Public health officials were accused of spreading misinformation “through conflicting messaging, knee-jerk reactions, and a lack of transparency”. The subcommittee stated, “In the most egregious examples of pervasive misinformation campaigns, off-label drug use and the lab-leak theory were unjustly demonised by the federal government”, and that “The Biden administration even employed undemocratic and likely unconstitutional methods, including pressuring social media companies to censor certain COVID-19 content, to fight what it deemed misinformation”.

The Food and Drug Association (FDA) rushed the approval of the COVID-19 vaccine to meet the Biden administration’s arbitrary mandate timeline, even though two leading FDA scientists warned about the dangers of rushing the vaccine approval process and the likelihood of adverse events. The subcommittee found that the mandates were not supported by science and caused more harm than good. To make matters worse, contrary to what was promised, the COVID-19 vaccine did not stop the spread or transmission of the virus.

During the pandemic, public health officials also exercised a coordinated effort to ignore natural immunity, which is acquired through previous COVID-19 infection, when developing vaccine guidance and mandates. As for the injury reporting systems, they were reported as creating confusion and failing to properly inform the American public about vaccine injuries. The US government was also accused of failing to efficiently, fairly, and transparently adjudicate claims for COVID-19 vaccine injuries.

The select subcommittee also accused the Biden administration’s United States Department of Health and Human Services of engaging in a multi-year campaign of delay, confusion, and non-responsiveness in an attempt to obstruct the investigation and hide evidence that could incriminate or embarrass senior public health officials.

DISTURBING FINDINGS

The subcommittee’s findings are disturbing but not surprising. I witnessed some of their observations firsthand. For instance, the only time I have ever been blocked from (then) Twitter was after I tweeted a statement informing women that they may experience abnormal menstrual bleeding after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. My tweet was a statement of fact, but I was informed by the social media platform that I was “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19”. I was subsequently referred to the WHO’s website for appropriate information. The irony is that when I visited the website, I found misleading information there, such as the following statement: “Experiencing side effects after getting vaccinated means the vaccine is working and your immune system is responding as it should.”

The inconvenient truth is that there was a massive betrayal of trust by major health authorities during the pandemic. The ‘science’ was not always followed. People who had rational concerns about the vaccines and measures taken to control the spread of the virus were ridiculed, bullied and, in many cases, dismissed from their jobs.

As a member of the medical fraternity, I now find myself at a crossroads. I no longer know who to trust, as I have lost confidence in the authorities I once looked to for guidance. Those of us who genuinely care about those under our care should humbly admit that we made missteps during the crisis, knowingly or unknowingly, and are willing to learn from our mistakes and not repeat them. Did we save lives? Absolutely. But we have a lot of work to do to regain the trust of the public.

Michael Abrahams is an obstetrician and gynaecologist, social commentator, and human-rights advocate. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and michabe_1999@hotmail.com, or follow him on X , formerly Twitter, @mikeyabrahams.