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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The key to feeling better in a fast, overstimulated world might be surprisingly simple: Live a little more like your grandparents.
A growing social media trend, dubbed “nonnamaxxing,” draws inspiration from the slower, more intentional rhythms associated with an Italian grandmother.
The lifestyle is often linked to activities like preparing home-cooked meals, spending time outdoors and making meaningful connections.
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“Nonnamaxxing is a 2026 trend that embraces the slower, more intentional lifestyle of an Italian grandmother (a Nonna). Think cooking from scratch, long family meals, daily walks, gardening and less screen time,” Erin Palinski-Wade, a New Jersey-based registered dietitian, told Fox News Digital.
Nonnamaxxing, derived from the name for an Italian grandmother, is a trend that incorporates lifestyle habits hundreds of years in the making. (iStock)
Stepping away from screens and toward real-world interaction can have measurable benefits, according to California-based psychotherapist Laurie Singer.
“We know that interacting with others in person, rather than spending time on screens, significantly improves mental health,” she told Fox News Digital, adding that social media often fuels comparison and lowers self-esteem.
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Living more like previous generations isn’t purely driven by nostalgia. Cooking meals from scratch, for example, has been linked to better nutrition and more mindful eating patterns.
Adopting traditional mealtime habits can improve diet quality and support both physical and mental health, especially when meals are shared regularly with others, Palinski-Wade noted.
One longevity expert stresses that staying healthy isn’t just about food — it’s also about joy and community. (iStock)
There’s also a psychological benefit to slowing down and focusing on one task at a time. Anxiety often stems from unfinished or avoided tasks, Singer noted, and engaging in hands-on activities can counteract that.
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“Nonnamaxxing encourages us to be present around a task, like gardening, baking or knitting, or just taking a mindful walk, that delivers something ‘real,’” she said.
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Palinski-Wade cautions against turning the trend into another source of pressure, noting that a traditional “nonna” lifestyle often assumes a different pace of life.
The key, she said, is adapting the mindset, not replicating it perfectly.
Nonnamaxxing, derived from the name for an Italian grandmother, is a trend that incorporates lifestyle habits hundreds of years in the making. (iStock)
The goal is to reintroduce small, intentional moments that make you feel better.
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That might mean prioritizing a few shared meals each week, taking a walk without your phone or setting aside time for a simple hobby, the expert recommended.
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Singer added, “Having a positive place to escape to, through whatever activities speak to us and make us happy, isn’t generational – it’s human.”
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Feeling lonely may take a toll on older adults’ memory — but it may not speed up cognitive decline, according to a new study.
Researchers from Colombia, Spain and Sweden analyzed data from more than 10,000 adults ages 65 to 94 across 12 European countries and found those who reported higher levels of loneliness did worse on memory tests at the start of the study, according to research published this month in the journal Aging & Mental Health.
Over a seven-year period, however, memory decline occurred at a similar rate regardless of how lonely participants felt.
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“The finding that loneliness significantly impacted memory, but not the speed of decline in memory over time was a surprising outcome,” lead author Dr. Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario said in a statement.
Loneliness may be linked to memory performance in older adults, a new study suggests. (iStock)
“It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline,” Venegas-Sanabria said, adding that the findings highlight the importance of addressing loneliness as a factor in cognitive performance.
The findings add to debate about whether loneliness contributes to dementia risk. While loneliness and social isolation are often considered risk factors for cognitive decline, research results have been mixed.
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The study looked at data from the long-running Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which tracked 10,217 older adults between 2012 and 2019. Participants were asked to recall words immediately and after a delay to measure memory performance.
Social isolation and loneliness could play a surprising role in cognitive health among seniors. (iStock)
Loneliness was assessed using three questions about how often participants felt isolated, left out or lacking companionship.
About 8% of participants reported high levels of loneliness at the outset. That group tended to be older, more likely to be female and more likely to have conditions such as depression.
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Researchers found that those with higher loneliness had lower scores on both immediate and delayed memory tests at baseline. Still, all groups — regardless of loneliness level — experienced similar declines in memory over time.
The results suggest loneliness may not directly accelerate the progression of memory loss, though it remains linked to poorer cognitive performance overall.
Researchers look at a brain scan at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Experts warn, however, that the findings should not be interpreted to mean loneliness is harmless.
“The finding that lonely older adults start with worse memory but don’t decline faster is actually the most interesting part of the paper, and I think it’s easy to misread,” said Jordan Weiss, Ph.D., a scientific advisor and aging expert at Assisted Living Magazine and a professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
“It likely means loneliness does its damage earlier in life, well before people show up in a study like this at 65-plus,” Weiss told Fox News Digital.
By older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold, an aging expert says. (iStock)
He suggested that by older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold.
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“By the time you’re measuring someone in their late 60s, decades of social connection patterns are already baked in,” he said.
Weiss, who was not involved in the research, added that loneliness may coincide with other health conditions, and noted that participants who felt more isolated also had higher rates of depression, high-blood pressure and diabetes. The link, he said, may reflect a cluster of health risks rather than a direct cause.
“While they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia,” a psychotherapist says. (iStock)
Amy Morin, a Florida-based psychotherapist and author, said the findings reflect a broader pattern in research on loneliness and brain health, and that the relationship may be more complex than it appears.
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“The evidence shows there’s a link between loneliness and cognitive decline but there’s no direct evidence of a cause and effect relationship,” she said. “So while they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia.”
Morin added that loneliness, which can fluctuate, may not be the root of the problem, but rather a symptom of other underlying mental or physical health issues.
Researchers suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging. (iStock)
She said staying socially and mentally engaged is crucial for overall brain health.
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“It’s important to be proactive about social activities,” Morin said. “Joining a book club, having coffee with a friend, or attending faith-based services can be a powerful way to maintain connections in older age.”
The researchers also suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
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