Congressman Steve Scalise: THE PANDEMIC RESPONSE REPORT

What’s Important Scalise, Comer, Biggs Lead Call for CDC Oversight Hearing: House Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.), House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.), and Representative Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), along with Republican lawmakers on both panels, called for an oversight hearing to examine the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) many failures during the pandemic. ‘Remote School Was Not Good for Learning’: New studies reveal what we already knew—school closures harmed students’ learning, especially low-income and minority students. Biden’s White House Peddles Vaccine Disinformation: Last week, the Biden White House boasted on Twitter there was no vaccine available when President Biden took office in January 2021, but both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were approved in December 2020. Crisis Corner‘Remote School Was Not Good for Learning’: New studies reveal what we already knew—school closures harmed students’ learning. According to new research, students who stayed home for most of the 2020-2021 school year lost about 50 percent of a typical school year’s math learning. School closures, which were worse in Democrat-run cities, particularly harmed low-income, Black, and Latino students. There is no doubt President Biden’s CDC exacerbated this crisis by allowing the American Federation of Teachers to rewrite school guidance to effectively keep thousands of schools shuttered. Biden BlundersBiden’s White House Peddles Vaccine Disinformation: Last week, the Biden White House boasted on Twitter there was no vaccine available when President Biden took office in January 2021. However, both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines were approved in December 2020. Additionally, President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris were also both vaccinated in 2020. Where’s President Biden’s Minister of Truth Nina Jankowicz? This Week in SSOCCScalise, Comer, Biggs Lead Call for CDC Oversight Hearing: House Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.), House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.), and Representative Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), along with Republican lawmakers on both panels, called on Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Select Subcommittee Chairman James Clyburn (D-S.C.) to hold an oversight hearing to examine the CDC’s many failures during the pandemic. In their letter to Chairs Maloney and Clyburn, the Republican lawmakers outlined how the CDC failed to uphold its mission during the pandemic. CDC bureaucrats worked against reopening schools, concealed data and essential information to control the narrative about vaccine effectiveness, issued confusing community masking guidelines, worked remotely during the worst pandemic in a century, and purchased Americans’ cell phone location data to track compliance with lockdowns. Select Subcommittee to Examine Democrat Lockdowns’ Impact on Women: This week, the Select Subcommittee will hold a hearing to analyze the determinantal impacts of mass lockdowns and school closures perpetuated by Democrats and the CDC. As a result of draconian COVID policies, women bore the brunt of home and childcare responsibilities resulting in exiting the workforce at a higher rate than men. The estimated economic productivity loss of closed childcare facilities and schools is between $142 to $217 billion over the next 10 years.What They’re Saying‘Not Good for Learning’ (New York Times)“When Covid-19 began to sweep across the country in March 2020, schools in every state closed their doors. Remote instruction effectively became a national policy for the rest of that spring. A few months later, however, school districts began to make different decisions about whether to reopen. Across much of the South and the Great Plains as well as some pockets of the Northeast, schools resumed in-person classes in the fall of 2020. Across much of the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast, school buildings stayed closed and classes remained online for months. These differences created a huge experiment, testing how well remote learning worked during the pandemic. Academic researchers have since been studying the subject, and they have come to a consistent conclusion: Remote learning was a failure.” House GOP leaders call for ‘immediate hearing’ on CDC COVID pandemic response (Washington Examiner)“A group of senior GOP lawmakers wants the House Oversight and Reform Committee and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis to hold an “immediate hearing” on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s pandemic response, alleging the agency ‘failed to uphold its mission’ during the peak of the health crisis. In a letter sent to Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Select Subcommittee Chairman and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) on Thursday, the Republican lawmakers argued the CDC has proven to be a ‘deeply flawed agency.’ Their concerns ranged from the agency withholding requested information on the number of hospitalizations and the vaccine’s effectiveness to recent reports that it tracked individuals’ cellphone data to see if people were complying with lockdown orders.” Opinion: Democrats’ support for school closings comes back to bite (CNN)“Often, Democratic politicians, health and school officials, and teachers unions in some of America’s bluest cities and suburbs aligned perfectly in a mission to keep school doors closed for so long. In these places, in-person instruction was deemed nonessential by the very people who claim to fight for public-school education. The high academic and social costs of remote learning and closed schools are now indisputable, but there was also a political cost … Much of blue America, which kept schools remote or hybrid for the 2020-2021 school year, conducted an unprecedented ‘social experiment’ on children, resorting to lengthy school closures for millions of children — a tactic not used during other national emergencies or previous pandemics. Now, the results are in from the ‘social experiment’ and they are very, very bad, and the people who supported closures are finally ready to talk about it.” Member MentionsHouse Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.) asks why a teachers union got VIP access to CDC guidance.