US House Covid Panel Report: Measures Caused More Harm Than Good

The six-foot social distancing requirement was not supported by science and masks were ineffective

After two years of investigation, a US House Of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has concluded that the mandatory requirement to maintain a social distance of at least six feet from other people at all times during the Covid crisis had no scientific basis. The committee's report also states that the effectiveness of any type of face mask in controlling the spread of the virus was close to zero. However, such forcibly applied measures had negative consequences for both people's mental health and children's development.

From the report of the Select Subcommittee, we have already highlighted the fact that Covid was found to have biological properties that are not found in nature and that can be inferred to be of laboratory origin. The same report also found that the call for social distancing had no scientific basis and that the effectiveness of face masks was low or non-existent. In contrast, other negative consequences of these measures have begun to emerge, ranging from shaky trust in the health system to mental health problems in people.

The social distance requirement "just appeared"

One of the measures to combat Covid-19 the US introduced in March 2020 was social distancing and the six-foot rule, obliging people to physically distance themselves from each other. Although it was more of a recommendation, the measure was quickly adopted in many countries. For example, many shops and other businesses had to limit the number of customers who could be in the shop at the same time. On the floor, positions were marked to ensure the required distance was kept between people while queuing, for example. The fact that many shops or other establishments were unable to comply with this requirement due to lack of space was the main reason why businesses were forced to close down by the authorities and schools, gatherings, and other events were banned.

In every part of the world, people had to keep at least 6 feet between each other. This was enforced by signs, by boxes drawn on the ground, and even by the authorities. Photo: Samsmachado/Wikimedia Commons

However, according to the report, there was no scientific basis for social distancing that would have confirmed the effectiveness of the measure. More than that, in 2023, Dr Anthony Fauci, the White House Covid policy coordinator, and Dr Francis Collins, then director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), admitted that the six-foot distance requirement "just appeared" and was an empirical decision. Even in 2024, Fauci has repeatedly stated that the 6-foot distance requirement was not supported by research but argued that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was responsible for implementing the measure. Despite the fact that the measure was not supported by research and was a CDC recommendation rather than an obligation in the US, the requirement remained in place until August 2022.

The mask was not an effective tool to prevent the spread of the virus

According to the report, the first guidelines for wearing face masks during the Covid pandemic were characterised by inconsistency and confusion. Initially, health authorities and organisations (CDC, WHO, etc) did not recommend that anyone wear masks except the sick and health workers. It was stressed that masks offered limited protection to healthy people. However, in April 2020, the CDC changed its stance and recommended the use of any face mask as an optional additional measure in areas where there was a high prevalence of the virus. A recommendation was then made for everyone to wear a mask in public spaces, although the decision on whether to do so was left to the state level. From April 2021, however, US health officials consistently issued mixed signals – at one point vaccinated people could opt out of masks, then again they could not. Each of us can recall strange scenes where people came into a restaurant wearing a mask, but when seated at a table they could remove the mask, as if the virus would then not spread.

The rules on wearing masks were changing faster than people understood the changed rules. Photo: Abhilash Jacob/Pixabay.

It was not until February 2022 that the CDC announced that, with vaccines available, as well as better treatment opportunities and more success with virus detection, the mask could be abandoned. By April 2022, the mask requirement was lifted in almost all US states.

In any case, the Cochrane Collaboration, an organisation of health researchers, summarised the relevance of masks in a review finding that all types of masks had little or no effect on respiratory viral disease infection. The effect was close to zero regardless of whether a cloth mask, medical mask, or N95/P2 respirator was worn. According to the report, these results are in direct contradiction with the requirement imposed by public health authorities to wear a mask at all times and for almost the entire duration of the COVID-19 crisis. In fact, the number of coronavirus infections was almost the same in states that had the mask mandate and those that didn’t. The congressional report states that the CDC specifically chose to present data that fit their description on the effectiveness of masks.

It is understandable that at the beginning of an outbreak, when data are scarce and panic prevails, guidelines are issued and measures are imposed that are not based on research. But new information on Covid-19 was coming in at a tremendous rate, yet the new knowledge had little to no impact on the rigorous measures. Health authorities issued conflicting guidelines, constantly rethinking them and basing decisions on inadequate research.

Mask mandates for children may have caused more harm than good

Apart from the fact that masks were of little benefit to adults, the report also found that they may have done more harm than good to children. US schools had a broad mask requirement from April 2020 to February 2022, which applied to all children over the age of 2, as well as teachers, staff and visitors. The WHO, on the other hand, did not recommend masks for children under the age of 5 because they were at low risk of becoming ill and the mask was not in the child's best interest. According to the WHO, most children that young are not able to wear a mask properly and effectively. The WHO further recommended that children up to 11 years of age should not wear masks all the time, as this could have a negative impact on their development, with particularly serious effects stemming from the obligation to wear a mask during physical activity.

While many countries followed the WHO's recommendations for children to wear masks, the US decided to apply a much stricter mask requirement for children. Photo: Amr/Pixabay.

In regards to the measures applied to children, it is important to note that Covid itself did not pose any significant risk to children. For example, a review of North American pediatric hospitals published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in May 2020 noted “that children are at far greater risk of critical illness from influenza than from COVID-19.” However, even with this early knowledge, children had to still wear the masks more and for much longer than necessary. Wearing a mask all the time could have had other, as yet unknown consequences for children, for example, speech and language impairments in young children, as many children wearing masks were afraid to speak while wearing the mask, leading to insecurity in communication. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association published a study in 2023, which finds that two-thirds of the participating speech-language pathologists reported an increase in client referrals since 2020.

Finally, the report concludes that by ignoring science and facts and the harms of mask mandates for children, the decisions of public health officials were unfair and the consequences of draconian measures are still not fully known. On the basis of information shared about the requirement for distancing and the obligation to wear a mask, it is probably worth recalling the words of Marty Makary, the future head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), that “the greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government”.