Many of us remember 2020 as the year of COVID, when our lives were upended and nothing would ever be the same again. What began as a novel illness quickly cascaded into “two weeks to flatten the curve,” followed by lockdowns, school closures, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham took it even further, telling New Mexicans to stop traveling from state to state, quarantining out-of-state visitors, setting up a snitch hotline for New Mexicans to report against each other, forcing children to wear masks even during outdoor sports, and creating “breadlines” by not allowing more than 75 people to shop for groceries even in huge megastores.
Those of us who would not or could not go along with it were discriminated against, denied access to vital services, and treated like dirt by the community at large.
I was not able to wear a mask because doing so induced dizziness, yet because of the policies implemented by the Governor and Las Cruces City Council, I was screamed at by strangers while trying to buy food for my family, denied access to City Council meetings, and denied access to basic services such as medical treatment.
My children were denied access to the city library and forced to be served outside while others were allowed full indoor access. A man screamed at my 13-year-old daughter and told her he hoped she would "catch COVID and die."
Another man screamed at me and my daughter in a store that we were "too stupid to live." These are just a few personal examples, but I know many others who were fired from their jobs, were denied education, or have suffered long-term health problems as a result of being forced to take shots that had inadequate safety studies.
New Mexico had one of the longest, most severe lockdowns in the country, with businesses being restricted from operating and schools being closed for well over a year. Because of the Governor’s policies, thousands of New Mexico small businesses failed, our healthcare and school systems were denied many capable workers, and students statewide were developmentally stunted such that they fell even farther behind their peers in other states. The ripples of these harms are still being felt today, yet New Mexico fared no better in COVID fatalities than states with far fewer restrictions and mandates.
But don’t take my word for it.
The federal government has now released the final report of a 2-year, bipartisan investigation into COVID and the effectiveness of the response measures implemented across the country. The 520-page comprehensive report clearly demonstrates that the COVID measures were not just ineffective, but also caused many harms. The report was published on December 4 by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, as part of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
According to the report, COVID-19 most likely emerged as a result of gain-of-function research that leaked out of a lab in Wuhan, China. This research was being funded with U.S. tax dollars and was purposely covered up by the federal government.
The report goes on to reveal that 6-feet-apart social distancing was arbitrary and “not supported by science.” Masks and mask mandates “were ineffective at controlling the spread of COVID-19.” The U.S. Centers for Disease Control “relied on flawed studies to support issuance of mask mandates” and forcing people to wear masks “caused more harm than good.”
According to the press release for the report, “Prolonged lockdowns caused immeasurable harm to not only the American economy, but also to the mental and physical health of Americans, with a particularly negative effect on younger citizens.
Rather than prioritizing the protection of the most vulnerable populations, federal and state government policies forced millions of Americans to forgo crucial elements of a healthy and financially sound life.”
Public health officials “disregarded natural immunity, despite its proven effectiveness and durability.” Furthermore, the vaccine mandates “were not supported by science and caused more harm than good.”
As a natural healthcare practitioner who has seen the devastating effects of vaccine-injury in children, I closely read the clinical trials for the COVID injections before they were rolled out. With my background as a NASA engineer and author of multiple peer-reviewed scientific papers, I was able to cut through the jargon and see clearly that the vaccines were never designed to stop the spread or transmission of the virus.
The COVID Select Committee’s report acknowledges this clearly, saying “the scientific basis of the COVID-19 vaccine mandates was highly questionable. COVID-19 mandates ignored natural immunity, stratification of risk from the virus, risk of adverse events from the vaccine, as well as the fact that the vaccines don’t prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
The report found that President Biden and other government officials “made false or misleading statements about COVID-19 vaccines.” For instance, “President Biden said during a July 21, 2021 CNN Town Hall that ‘[i]f you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the IC unit, and you’re not going to die.’ According to the [Associated Press] fact checkers, by the time of this statement nearly 5,500 vaccinated people had been hospitalized or died with COVID-19.”
Additionally, the report found that “the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System [VAERS] is insufficient” and “vaccine safety systems may be missing important safety signals, especially related to neurological conditions.”
The report described the much greater number of reported adverse events and deaths for COVID-19 vaccines over three years when compared to “all other vaccines over 30 years.”
In other words, in just three years there were many more vaccine injuries and deaths reported for COVID-19 vaccines than reported for all other vaccines combined over a 30-year period.
The report also found that government officials pressured media companies to keep information about COVID-19 from the American public. “Mr. [Mark] Zuckerberg wrote that the Biden Administration ‘repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content,’” according to the report.
I myself experienced firsthand the effects of the government’s suppression of information about the ineffectiveness of lockdown measures, vaccine ineffectiveness, and vaccine injuries. Facebook repeatedly restricted my account when I tried to share scientific information about lockdowns, masks, vaccines, and vaccine injuries, even when sharing information directly from the clinical trials and the VAERS.
The COVID Select Committee’s report is vindicating but it is of little consolation to those who suffered so much at the hands of the ill-conceived mandates.
Those of us who could not or would not go along with the government’s mandates are still trying to make sense of what happened.
Because of our personal medical decisions, government agencies and our local elected officials publicly treated us with disrespect, derision, and discrimination.
By and large, the American public went along with the government, even though our most basic freedoms were being violated.
I agree with the report that, “The Constitution cannot be suspended in times of crisis.” It is in times of crisis that our constitutional protections are most needed. COVID showed us that the public will go along with mass violations of our rights.
Hopefully, the COVID Select Committee’s report will illuminate the situation and help more people be willing to challenge the status quo next time to ensure that this never happens again.
Sarah Smith is co-leader of the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance (non-partisan statewide grassroots coalition) and Vice Chair of the Coalition of Conservatives in Action in Las Cruces. Sarah is also a homeschooling mother of two teens, natural healthcare practitioner, and former NASA aerospace engineer.
