Health
New report blasts government's COVID response, warns of repeating same mistakes
A new report has sharply criticized the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, writing that lockdowns, school closures and vaccine mandates were “catastrophic errors” resulting in many Americans losing faith in public health institutions.
The report, published this week by the non-profit Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CTUP), paints a damning indictment of the government’s role in the crisis and offers ten lessons that must be learned, to avoid the same mistakes from being repeated.
Some of the guidance includes halting all binding agreements or pledges to the World Health Organization (WHO), term limits for all senior health agency positions as well as limiting the powers of health agencies to make sure they are strictly advisory and do not have the power to set laws or mandates.
Then-President Donald J. Trump listens to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaking with members of the coronavirus task force during a briefing in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on April 17, 2020, in Washington, D.C. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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The paper, titled “COVID Lessons Learned A Retrospective After Four Years,” states that granting unprecedented powers to public health agencies, many of which imposed strict limits on basic civil liberties, had little positive benefit and instead helped stoke fear among the public.
“Conventional wisdom pre-COVID was that communities respond best to pandemics when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted,” the authors wrote. “During COVID, the public health establishment followed the opposite principle: they intentionally stoked and amplified fear, which overlaid enormous economic, social, educational and health harms on top of the harms of the virus itself.”
The report was written by Scott Atlas, M.D., a senior fellow in health policy at the Hoover Institution and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Steve Hanke, Ph.D., a professor of applied economics at the Johns Hopkins University, Philip Kerpen, the president of the Committee to Unleash and Casey B. Mulligan, Ph.D., a professor in economics at the University of Chicago. It draws on various reports and research papers that studied the pandemic.
People in cars attend Easter Sunday services at the Daytona Beach Drive-in Christian Church as a way to practice social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“SARS-CoV2 was a dangerous virus, but a calm, proportionate response would have applied the lessons from past influenza pandemics and used existing pandemic response plans. Instead, from the moment the virus was detected in America, the public health community and politicians spread an outsized message of fear and doom,” the paper reads.
The group wrote that lockdowns did not work to substantially reduce deaths or stop viral circulation, and although they were timed to claim credit for declining waves of the virus, they “rarely had any discernable casual impact.”
In reality, one of the results was that people’s health was negatively impacted as medical procedures were canceled, stoking fear, they wrote.
For instance, from April 2020 through the end of 2021, there were 171,000 non-COVID excess deaths, whereas there were none in Sweden, a country that did not lock down despite being heavily pressured to do so.
People gather in support of continuing the school mask mandate outside the Loudon County Government Center prior to a Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, January 18, 2022, in Leesburg, VA. The report states that masking had little or no value to fight the spread of the disease. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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“A much wiser strategy than issuing lockdown orders would have been to tell the American people the truth, stick to the facts, educate citizens about the balance of risks, and let individuals make their own decisions about whether to keep their businesses open, whether to socially isolate, attend church, send their children to school, and so on,” the authors wrote.
School shutdowns caused dramatic and irrefutable damage to children, they wrote, with reports of poor learning, school dropouts, social isolation, mental illness, drug abuse, suicidal ideation and 300,000 cases of child abuse unreported in the spring of 2020.
Masks also had little or no value and were possibly harmful, they wrote, “amplifying fears by creating the irrational belief that an unmasked face presented a threat, causing conflict and division among citizens, and giving high-risk people the mistaken impression that masks were protective, potentially resulting in some people risking exposure who otherwise may not have.”
They blasted the CDC for continuing to advise mask wearing “contrary to evidence . . . [and] undermining its credibility.”
On an economic level, the lockdowns put over 49 million Americans out of work, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) survey data. Unemployment benefits approved by Congress prolonged unemployment and associated economic underperformance, too.
The report also criticized the media, Big Tech, the academic science and public health community for stifling debate.
U.S. President Joe Biden receives his updated COVID-19 booster in the South Court Auditorium at the White House campus on October 25, 2022. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“Anthony Fauci, the head of the largest federal grantmaking entity, created an environment in which it was very difficult for most medical experts to break with the dominant narratives on lockdowns, masks, or overwhelmed hospitals,” the report states.
“The National Institutes of Health (NIH) became the principal advocate of lockdown policies, but failed to run high-quality trials of repurposed drugs and non-pharmaceutical interventions.”
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Elsewhere, the report praised the Project Warp Speed for getting effective monoclonal antibody treatments and vaccines in record time, but it failed to assess their safety. The authors wrote that the mandates and associated pressure campaign were wrong and undermined informed consent.
The authors recommend that Congress and the states define by law “public health emergency” with strict limitations on powers conferred to the executives and time limits that require legislation to be extended.
“Crises are when checks and balances and well-functioning institutions are most needed – not when they should be discarded and decision-making outsourced to alleged experts like Francis Collins, who casually confessed to a completely incorrect decision calculus years later,” they wrote.
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Health
Possible hantavirus case under investigation in upstate New York; no connection to deadly cruise ship outbreak
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A “suspected” hantavirus case in upstate New York is being investigated, according to the Ontario County Public Health Department (OCPHD) based in Canandaigua.
The department announced in a Facebook post Thursday that it is currently “investigating a suspected locally acquired hantavirus case.”
“There is NO connection to the cruise ship outbreak, and there is no risk to the general public,” OCPHD officials wrote.
The investigation comes as global health officials continue monitoring a rare hantavirus outbreak tied to the MV Hondius luxury cruise ship that has sickened multiple passengers and crew members and left three people dead.
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As of May 13, the World Health Organization (WHO) said 11 hantavirus cases had been identified in connection with the cruise outbreak, including eight confirmed cases, two probable cases and one inconclusive case. Three deaths have also been linked to the outbreak.
Health officials have emphasized that hantavirus infections remain rare and that the risk to the general public is low.
Human-to-human transmission of hantavirus is considered extremely rare and has only been suspected in certain strains, including the Andes hantavirus strain linked to the cruise ship outbreak.
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A passenger wearing a face mask and blue protective gown gives a thumbs up inside a bus after disembarking from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, on May 10. (Manu Fernandez/AP Photo)
“Hantavirus infections are rare in New York,” the OCPHD said. “The virus is spread through mouse and rodent droppings, especially when urine, feces, or nesting materials become aerosolized during cleaning.”
The OCPHD urged residents to take precautions when cleaning enclosed spaces where rodents may be present, including wearing gloves and masks when opening or cleaning attics, cabins, sheds and garages.
The OCPHD and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
REPORTED HANTAVIRUS PROTOCOL BREACH AT HOSPITAL FORCES 12 EMPLOYEES INTO 6-WEEK QUARANTINE
A 3D illustration shows the structure of hantavirus, an RNA virus transmitted to humans through rodent excreta that can cause severe illnesses including hemorrhagic fever, renal disease and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. (iStock)
The cruise ship outbreak has prompted heightened precautions internationally.
In the Netherlands, Radboud University Medical Center quarantined 12 staff members after officials said a hantavirus patient’s blood and urine were not handled under the strictest international protocols required for the specific virus strain.
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Hospital officials said the risk of infection to staff remained low but called the quarantine a precautionary measure.
The outbreak aboard the MV Hondius began after a Dutch cruise ship carrying 147 passengers and crew departed Argentina on April 1 for a South Atlantic voyage.
According to the WHO, investigators believe the initial infection may have stemmed from rodent exposure during birdwatching excursions before boarding the ship.
Fox News Digital’s Bonny Chu contributed to this report.
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A common over-the-counter medication combined with a home exercise program could help ease cognitive issues for cancer patients.
That’s according to a study from the University of Rochester, which tested the effects of physical activity and low-dose ibuprofen on patients receiving chemotherapy treatment.
“Chemo brain” (also called chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment, or CRCI) is a known side effect of cancer treatment that can affect memory, concentration and multitasking ability. Up to 80% of people who receive chemo experience some degree of cognitive impairment, previous studies have shown.
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Rochester’s phase 2 trial studied 86 adult cancer patients in New York undergoing chemotherapy who were experiencing cognitive problems. The average age was 53 and nearly 89% of participants were women, according to a university press release.
Participants who took only ibuprofen also showed greater cognitive improvements than the placebo group. (IStock)
Patients were randomly assigned to one of four groups. One group participated in home exercise designed specifically for cancer patients, a second group combined the exercises with ibuprofen (200 milligrams, or one pill, twice a day), the third group took ibuprofen alone and a fourth took a placebo alone.
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The exercise program consisted of low to moderate-intensity activity, including progressive walking and training with resistance bands.
“This is one of the first studies specifically designed to assess these interventions for cancer-related cognitive impairment during chemotherapy in patients with multiple diseases using both performance-based cognitive assessments and patient-reported outcomes,” said lead author Michelle C. Janelsins, Ph.D., MPH, of the University of Rochester and the Wilmot Cancer Institute, in the press release.
Up to 80% of people who receive chemo experience some degree of cognitive impairment.
After six weeks, exercise was linked to the clearest improvements in attention and cognitive function, according to input from family and friends. Those in the group who combined exercise and placebo showed better attention levels compared to those who took just a placebo.
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Participants who took only ibuprofen also showed greater cognitive improvements than the placebo group.
The findings suggest that ibuprofen may provide some improvement in cognitive function, although the benefits appeared to be smaller and less consistent than those seen with exercise.
“Chemo brain” (also called chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment, or CRCI) is a known side effect of cancer treatment that can affect memory, concentration and multitasking ability. (iStock)
This suggests that inflammation may contribute to cancer-related cognitive impairment, and that anti-inflammatory medications could be an effective therapeutic approach.
“We are encouraged by the findings of this trial that suggest possible benefits of both interventions for some cognitive domains,” Janelsins said. “Clearly, we saw a more pronounced effect with exercise, which is notable considering the multiple health benefits of exercise for cancer survivors.”
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No adverse side effects were reported during the trial.
The findings were published in Cancer, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
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There were some limitations of the study, the researchers noted, including the small sample size and short duration. The effects were also not consistent across every measure of cognitive function.
As the majority of participants were women, the findings may not be generalized to broader populations.
“Clearly, we saw a more pronounced effect with exercise, which is notable considering the multiple health benefits of exercise for cancer survivors,” the researcher said. (iStock)
Researchers are planning larger phase 3 trials to confirm whether ibuprofen and exercise can effectively improve chemo-related cognitive impairment.
“Since we saw cognitive benefits in some domains and not others, we will also consider additional doses and longer durations in future research trials,” said Janelsins.
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Investigators emphasized that patients should speak with their oncology team before starting ibuprofen or exercise interventions during chemotherapy, as certain treatments or medical conditions could increase the risk of side effects and complications.
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