The New Hampshire House Special Committee on Covid Response Efficacy has issued its findings.
Before we get to the finer points.
In undertaking a review of these actions to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus, this House Committee recognizes that the decisions made during the pandemic were done under immense pressures with the information available at that time. Accordingly, this Committee has endeavored to determine how New Hampshire can “do better next time” rather than merely second-guessing the decisions made with “20/20 Hindsight.”
Steve KIrsch dug through the report and provided this summary.
In a nutshell:
- If you worked for the state or federal government, everything was done right.
- If you didn’t work for the government, everything was a disaster.
A key point in his continued analysis confirms that the Democrats on the committee showed zero interest in measuring or evaluating the response. We know or have reported some of this.
Kirsch also notes that Steve Petty “said the Democrats were in the room, but mostly fiddling with their cell phones. They didn’t ask Petty a single question.” [We have his full testimony here] and a similar testimony from 2022.
I also asked John Beaudoin about his testimony in front of the special committee. He told me also that NONE of the Democrats asked a single question. There were at most 2 Democrats in the room at any time.
As for the report itself, Steve has done the heavy lifting, so let’s hear what he found and make sure he gets the credit.
My personal favorite is #12.
- Page 5: “The first major goal identified by the committee was to halt the widespread transmission of the SARS-COV-2 virus. In other words, stop the virus from spreading amongst the population and prevent the virus from becoming endemic. This objective led to guidance and recommendations regarding the wearing of various forms of personal protective equipment, masking, and social distancing. At the state level, such guidance was provided by the state epidemiologist, though it appears that there was often a reliance on the guidance being offered by the federal agencies. In many cases, New Hampshire simply followed the federal guidance.Analysis on the efficacy of the response as it pertains to this goal must begin with the fact that despite all measures implemented the spread of the virus was not halted.”
Translation: “Masks and social distancing didn’t do shit.”- Page 6: “Indeed, no testimony or documents were received by the committee indicating that the mitigation strategies were effective.”
Translation: “All these measures didn’t do shit.”- Page 7: “However, statistical and graphical analysis of this R0 value over time provided no obvious indication that the spread of SARS-COV-2 was mitigated at all by the cumulative measures implemented.”
Translation: “All these measures didn’t do shit.”- Page 8: “It is nonetheless the case that the cumulative effects of the measures taken by the state to slow the spread of the SARS-COV-2 virus were ineffectual. It is nonetheless the case that the cumulative effects of the measures taken by the state to slow the spread of the SARS-COV-2 virus were ineffectual. Little evidence has been presented to this committee credibly indicating that there would have been any increase in morbidity and mortality, or any strain of the New Hampshire healthcare system beyond capacity, in the absence of these measures cumulatively.”
Translation: “All these measures didn’t do shit.”- Page 8: “Because of the limited availability and the required conditions for treatment, it is unclear what, if any, positive or negative effect this treatment made.”
Translation: “All these monoclonal treatments didn’t do shit, as far as we can tell.”- Page 8: “Vaccinations … were initially advertised by relevant authorities as preventing the spread of the SARS-COV-2 virus. Clearly, this was unsubstantiated by any clinical evidence and was proven demonstrably false under real-world conditions.”
Translation: “The CDC lied; people died.”- Page 9: “Therefore, it is not known what role the vaccines and boosters had in the downward trend of the disease, but this committee has seen no evidence that it was effective in reducing incidence of documented cases. Multiple expert testimonies were received regarding both ineffectiveness and the prevalence of serious adverse reactions associated with vaccination.”
Translation: “The vaccines didn’t do shit as far as we can tell; they made things worse.”- Page 9: “Most worrisome here is the substantial testimony and documentation indicating that the relevant federal agencies overseeing safety abandoned the established standards for safe use of such products in humans.”
Translation: “Safety protocols were ignored. The focus was on lives saved, not how many died.”- Page 10: “Given that our state’s actions did not have any meaningful, demonstrable impact on the course of the pandemic, it is recommended for further study, and we call upon the private sectors and academia to study and innovate, in the field of mitigation of biological agents.”
Translation: “It would be good to have a sane plan for the next pandemic because this one was a total failure.”- Page 25: “… when indoors, the spread of a highly contagious, airborne pathogen is unlikely to be successfully mitigated simply by maintaining a three or six foot personal bubble. This is true to such an extent that it is unlikely that any member of this committee would have, independently, recommended such a strange action in the absence of the guidance promulgated by the federal and state Executive branches.”
Translation: “The recommendations from the State and Federal experts were comical.”- Page 27: “It would be difficult for the committee to identify a more thoroughly publicly detested measure taken by either governmental or private-sector actors during the pandemic than the mandates requiring the wearing of face masks. This committee received significant testimony to precisely this sentiment, as well as considerable expert testimony regarding the apparent inefficacy of masks for mitigating an airborne pathogen.”
Translation: “Masking is detested and they didn’t do shit.”- Page 31: “This committee received voluminous testimony and records relating to the utilization of vaccines and mRNA technology relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes expert testimony from epidemiologists, attorneys, and testimony from lay people, as well as testimony from state authorities. Except for those state authorities, the overwhelming thrust of the testimony received concerning the vaccines was negative.”Translation: “Testimony from State officials was that the COVID response was superb. Testimony from everyone else was that the COVID response was a fricken disaster.”
- Page 31: “It is therefore the recommendation of this committee that such excesses of authority, the claiming of police powers to divide the population, order healthy persons’ liberty severely restricted, order houses of worship and private businesses shuttered, and the like should never again be pursued by this government.”
Translation: “Coercing people to do stupid things that made things worse is a dumb idea. We shouldn’t repeat the same mistake. Let people decide for themselves. People aren’t stupid.”- Page 31: “It is known that, by the criteria settled upon prior to vaccine rollout, the threshold for “safety signal” was exceeded for multiple, serious medical conditions, including myocarditis, autoimmune dysfunction, and neurological injury within a very short time after initial vaccine rollout. It is known that the CDC then chose to abandon their previously established methodology for evaluating ongoing safety data for the vaccines. It is, however, not known why the CDC chose to do this, nor is it known why the public was not made aware of this “safety signal” data or the change in methodology.”
Translation: “The CDC was tone deaf to all the safety alarms going off. Their mission was to push drug products regardless of how many people were killed by the drugs.”- Page 32: “From the gathered testimony of New Hampshire officials, it does not appear that these authorities within our state were aware of these safety issues at the time that the CDC had this data. Federal authorities developed a narrative of “safe and effective” that was knowingly not supported by data. At the time, the State of New Hampshire authorities adopted this narrative uncritically and implemented it as policy in state guidance. It appears that the official narrative and conclusions of federal authorities and select public-private partnerships, such as some of those overseeing vaccine safety and efficacy, were readily adopted by relevant New Hampshire authorities without any circumspect and critical review. Indeed, the state epidemiologist testified that at no point did the state generate any of our own guidance around vaccines, but rather merely adopted federal guidance.”
Translation: “The CDC lied and the NH health officials just did whatever the CDC recommended without question. The blind leading the blind.”- Page 33: “Lastly, “propaganda” is defined by the Miriam-Webster dictionary as “ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause.” As such, any time an official position or narrative is adopted by the state, and official speech or media is undertaken to advance that position or narrative publicly, the state is, definitionally, engaged in propaganda. This is the case regardless of the truth or falsity of the position, narrative, or propaganda being engaged in. The State of New Hampshire adopted and forwarded narratives and engaged in fear-based marketing during the pandemic around such items as “stay at home,” vaccination of various demographics including children (i.e. “our shot to get back to normal”), the safety and efficacy of vaccines and treatments, and more. These items were directly related to federal funding as well.”
Translation: “The State simply repeated the bullshit coming down from the CDC with a goal of gaslighting people into believing that they knew what they were talking about.”- Page 33: “Further, censorship is now known to have occurred at the behest of federal authorities as well as private-sector actors (often acting in concert with federal authorities). Quashing citizens’ speech that represented undesirable narratives must too have had an impact on the authorities of this state who, to the best of this committee’s knowledge, did not know of or partake in these censorious activities. The absence of the skeptical voices of these citizens may well have played a role in the decisions made by authorities within this state.”Translation: “Biden’s embracing of censorship led to nonsensical state policies because the State authorities thought there was no dissent.”
- Page 34: “This is an unacceptable circumstance and represents precisely the sort of actions the founders meant to frustrate when they enumerated the entire set of First Amendment rights within the Bill of Rights. This censorship was both an affront to these rights of citizens and to the relationship of the federal government to this state. Censorship efforts included suppression of treatments and information around potential treatments for COVID-19 that may have steered policy.”
Translation: “Those wielding the club of censorship are violating the First Amendment. They are not serving the public interest.”- Page 36: “During this testimony it became apparent that such large-scale engineering controls, as so many professionals and experts recommended to this committee as first-line defense against airborne pathogens, were deemed outside the scope of Public Health measures that could be readily deployed with available funding. Further testimony seemed to suggest hurdles to funding such measures were prohibitive of considering them under the rubric of Public Health.This appears to have been an unfortunate conclusion, as it, in hindsight, is abundantly clear that the totality of measures taken, and economic losses incurred by not taking such engineering measures early on, far exceeded the costs of implementing these measures in the first place in every conceivabledimension.”
We appreciate Steve’s diligence and hope you will follow him on Substack. He is one of my recommended reads.
I’m reading the report myself and will follow up if I find anything different or worthy of further comment (which is unlikely). I’ll also contact the non-Democrat committee members for comments and share what I get back.
