Tipsheet
Premium

House Subcommittee Releases Final Report on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Here Are the Key Findings.

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  December 03, 2024 8:00 AM

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Monday closed the book on its two-year investigation into the pandemic, releasing a massive report that will serve as a roadmap for the public and private sector to prepare for and face any future pandemic. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted a distrust in leadership,” wrote Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) in a letter to Congress. “Trust is earned. Accountability, transparency, honesty, and integrity will regain this trust. A future pandemic requires a whole of America response managed by those without personal benefit or bias. We can always do better, and for the sake of future generations of Americans, we must. It can be done.”

The Subcommittee released key findings from the 520-page document:

Also mentioned in the report is the fact that the Department of Justice sought information from EcoHealth Alliance as part of a grand jury investigation into COVID's origins. 

Scientific experts and former federal officials have suggested that EcoHealth Alliance’s grants to the China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) funded gain-of-function research that could have led to a lab leak — but records requests have repeatedly been blocked by the National Institutes of Health, according to the report.

The details of the apparent federal investigation of EcoHealth Alliance remain secret — and members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which released the 520-page report on the origins of and response to the pandemic, have declined to talk about it, citing concerns about interfering in any potential DOJ investigation.

However, internal emails and records from EcoHealth Alliance included in the report reveal that the grand jury issued subpoenas for genetic sequences of EcoHealth’s research on viruses in Wuhan, as well as for correspondence between the organization’s president, Dr. Peter Daszak, and Dr. Shi Zhengli, his collaborator and the so-called “bat lady” at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who specialized on coronaviruses. (New York Post)