The Real U.S. Covid Disaster: Pandemic Economic Damage Topped $18 Trillion
A report by Heritage Foundation’s Nonpartisan Commission on China and COVID-19 also concluded that it “very likely stemmed from a research-related incident in Wuhan, China.”
During a series of congressional hearings focused on the origins of the novel coronavirus that spread worldwide and the nation’s response to the pandemic, the former White House COVID advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted that significant aspects of the policies pushed by “experts” (e.g., masking, and social distancing) were not based on science.
Fauci was also keen on discrediting any information that tied the initial outbreak of COVID-19 to a laboratory release within the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
A new report by the Heritage Foundation’s Nonpartisan Commission on China and COVID-19 found that the pandemic and its response caused $18 trillion in economic losses to this country. The analysis also blamed the Chinese government for the outbreak.
FOX Business exclusively viewed an advance copy of the report, which estimated that as of December 2023, the pandemic’s total economic cost in the U.S. topped $18 trillion after taking into account several ways in which the pandemic affected the economy.
That figure includes more than $8.6 trillion caused by excess deaths; more than $1.825 trillion in lost income; $6 trillion due to chronic conditions such as “long COVID”; and mental health losses of $1 trillion and educational losses of $435 billion pushed the total above $18 trillion.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has exacted a staggering toll on the United States, both in human lives and in economic terms. The total estimated cost of $18.007 trillion is a stark reminder of the profound impact this global health crisis has had on the nation,” the commission wrote. “By understanding and acknowledging these costs, we can lay the groundwork for holding accountable those whose negligence or overt actions exacerbated the pandemic’s severity.”
The analysis also showed that the real gross domestic product in that period was 2.5% below what was projected in early 2020 before the pandemic began.
Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of the economic disaster, here is the visualization of 1 trillion dollars:
The commission also concluded that it “very likely stemmed from a research-related incident in Wuhan, China.”
“Although it remains theoretically possible that COVID-19 emerged via zoonosis in the wild or spillover in a wet market (spillover is a virus originating in animals before it passes to humans), there is no evidentiary basis for either of these hypotheses despite extensive testing over four years,” the commission wrote.
The report also included a timeline of the Chinese government’s actions as part of a “systematic cover-up” of the origins of COVID that began, at the latest, in December 2019, as well as its failure to take steps to contain the virus within its borders.
Meanwhile, the press is once again pushing fear-porn in the form of the latest covid variant.
Since everyone’s experience with COVID is different and influenced by a number of factors, it’s difficult to quantify how many are experiencing more acute symptoms now compared with previous infections. But anecdotally, including on social media sites, people are expressing shock at how sick they’ve become from the latest subvariants, which have been collectively nicknamed FLiRT.
“I’ve had COVID a few times but this is the worst I’ve had it,” wrote one person on Reddit. The person reported recurring fever, being so congested they couldn’t breathe out of their nose, “terrible sinus pressure and headache … and I can’t stand up for too long without feeling like I’m about to pass out.”
“Previously COVID just felt like the common cold, but this strain is [wreaking] havoc,” the person wrote. “I don’t like to complain like this, but I’m shocked at how much it’s taking me out.”
Another person wrote that their “throat feels like razor blades” and that they feel like they’re “in living misery.”
“I have so much phlegm, but it hurts so bad to cough because my throat is on literal fire!!” the person wrote. “This is my 4th time having Covid and I swear I feel like this is the worst it’s ever been!!”
The FLiRT variants’ name is based on the technical names of the two mutations and appears to be the disease du jour. The strains are subvariants of Omicron, and together, they account for more than 60% of COVID cases in this country.
I anticipate the next few weeks will be filled with articles on symptoms of FLiRT and reminders to get booster shots. Like the disease, media drama about covid has now come in a fairly regular and predictable cycle.
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Comments
The only reparations that should be paid are for what those goons did to so many hard working Americans.
As far as slavery reparations, those were given when the bloodshed for freeing all slaves came about. Today’s people that expect it should go back to Africa to deal with the progeny of all those Africans who caught the people that were sent to be slaves and GOOD LUCK with that wild goose chase.
The Great Reset was deployed in the guise of a pandemic.
And Fauci got away scott free—with his pockets full of money and his head full pride.
So far…there’s always tomorrow.
Congress really needs to investigate his finances. For example, where did he get $15,000,000 to plunk down on a Potomac River estate? Why are so many in the NHS and so on getting patent money and payments from Big Pharma?
How much Chinese money flowed in and who got it?
Why was Fauci & Co so determined to shunt attention away from the Chinese?
Maybe Fauci and his NGO cutouts are guilty of having the Chinese make and release the virus to stop Trump’s reelection.
Why is anyone in the government receiving royalties? If their work was done as part of their normal job, that money belongs to the US Treasury, not government employees.
By rights, he should be swinging from a lamp post, along with Collins and Birx.
Everything old is new again. The Communist satraps running Federal agencies and departments certainly have a limited imagination.
https://instapundit.com/659281/
We won’t know the real total impact for decades. The developmental stunting of an entire generation of children will haunt us for the next 80 years.
Could the $8.6 trillion cost of excess deaths actually be something in the order of an $8.6 trillion benefit? For the most part, those who died were older and infirm; therefore a burden on the health care system and social benefits.
Good campaign point if Cuomo decides to run again or Whitmer goes for prez.
Cold calculus there, but you have a point.
I often wonder if that was part of the original intent.
Interesting thought Howard…. if rather heartless. However, most (a substantial percentage anyhow) of the costs of the old and infirm are paid for through their savings and insurance plans… not directly by government.
The Healthcare system was never overburdened during the pandemic (perhaps because of the shutdowns?). Further none of the care for the survivors or the dead was done for free. It was, instead, profitable.
It might be argued that there was a savings to Social Security from the deaths, but as a percentage of the total it wasn’t very significant, and in any case, the government distributed enormous funds by check to the public that swallowed those savings without a gulp. Note that there is no “Lockbox” isolating social security funds.
Now, if you’re done kicking that puppy,….
You are not analyzing this properly. The old and infirm take a disproportionate toll on all social costs. Shortening their lives is an inarguable massive savings. It is the same faulty argument that always accompanies cigarette smoking. The strain on medical resources during covid is irrelevant to my point, as were newly minted transfer payments because they are accounted for in the balance of the costs. I wish your analysis were as valid as it is breezy and confidant.
correct
thats why the left pushes for abortion on the front end
and
death by any means necessary on the backend
“The old and infirm take a disproportionate toll on all social costs.”
Absolutely correct. This is why the least wealthy cultures and peoples very often took grandpa and grandma into the woods, or the desert, or up a mountainside, and abandoned them. They weren’t heartless, they just understood the old and infirm (including mentally and/or physically crippled newborns) were a burden on the community that they literally could not afford. They removed them from their communities because the communities didn’t have the resources (excess wealth) necessary to sustain them without negatively impacting the productive and healthy members of the community, which could possibly threaten the existence of the entire community.
This is mostly correct. Careful analyses show that smoking reduces costs to Medicaid and Social Security because people don’t live as long; these programs are insolvent and shorter lifespans mean reduced costs. This is not “heartless,” it is simply factual, regardless of our opinions of it.
Where possibly your observation goes awry, EHH, is that for the total effect we also have to include a guesstimate of the value remaining years of life lost for each person who died, using QALY’s or something and compare to medical savings. I haven’t read the Heritage report so don’t know what they did.
Invoking “heartless” is a bad idea; it is exactly what happened when a number of us who warned against lockdowns and ignoring costs were called “heartless,” even though costs include the people lockdowns killed and impoverished.
Howard, you miss the point that medical spending by the Olds is an economic plus, not a negative. As long as they’re alive having their various ailments treated, they’re spending money. Oddly enough, when they die, they quit spending, although many of them continue to vote.
Doctors, nurses, nursing homes, medical aides, therapists, medications vitamin pills- that’s a lot of financial activity. When (what’s left) of their savings is passed on to their heirs, most of it goes into savings and stops generating revenue for the Medicos. Note that this is spending atop the normal “cable-tv” et al. day to day spending done by all consumers regardless of age.
I believe your argument that the government is funding most medical spending is both shallow and incorrect. Whether the source of the dollars spent is from tax dollars or insurance plans and/or individual savings, the money goes into the economy.
I don’t think he meant his comment to be heartless, just realistic. The younger generations just see boomers as a huge drain on society, and with the solvency of Medicare in question, it’s not a far-fetched idea.
You miss the point. For a calculation of aggregate net effects it does not matter who is paying. And accurate accounting has nothing to go do with either heartlessness or caring..
Let’s call what happened to us in 2020 for what it actually was – an act of war, an attack upon our Republic because some people (I’m looking at you, Democrats and at you, media) couldn’t countenance the Bad Orange Man.
So when a man-made, worse than usual cold happened upon our shores, the political class seized the opportunity to scare the shit out of people, close everything and crash the economy. Then , using the pandemic as pretext, they rigged the election to put a demented pervert in office.
With their nemesis gone, the virus disappeared.
In the words of one of the most despicable democrats of them all, “It worked, didn’t it?”
It could be worse than that. Fauci’s cutouts who were funding the Chinese lab may have directed their WIV minions to release it deliberately to see what happens, or to do the work under BSL2 conditions where it would certainly escape. They could have done it specifically to stop Trump’s reelection – and I’m sure the CCP knows who did what and why. There could be a lot of very guilty Deep Staters for whom the CCP has total blackmail.
Why has no one gone to jail for this?
Because Merrick Garland is our AG.
Add the $18 trillion sum to the trillions in damage wrought by the vile Dhimmi-crats during their 2020 insurrection, riots and agitprop, and, the Bidenflation premium paid by citizens and businesses for fuel and other essential goods and services.
The Dhimmi-crat apparatchiks’ corrosive, fiscally illiterate and profligate governance inevitably leads to impoverishment and financial ruin.
I said back during the pandemic that we should be billing China 50 trillion dollars for the damage they’re doing to our country with their bio weapon attack.
b/c we allow the lefty to control america
the dnc/chinese alignment met its goals to destabilize the world>>USA and cause Trump to be forced to put on hold his maga
though Trump still succeeded in many ways he was still hampered by the
dnc/rino/chinese axis of evils
To that $18T add in all the economic and human damage from Obama care. I lost a good job to the restructuring caused by that monstrosity, and I figure since it’s passing, if you combine lost income and extra expenses, my family is out close to half a million compared to where we’d be without zerocare and covid. And to start we were only middle class at best. We’re not that now.
The booster shots are unlikely to be up to date on these variants.
Just think of the criminal culpability if this was done deliberately – and by Americans – not by the CCP. I suspect that our Deep State had their cutouts at the NGO funding WIV either release the virus deliberately to stop Trump’s reelection, or do the work under conditions where it would be guaranteed to escape. If so, they have an awful lot to hide and cover up. They would be guilty of tens of millions of 2nd degree murders, for one,
Can we just put fauci and all the governors who put the diseased in with the old folks on trial and then lock them up and toss the key?
Asking for America.
If you were to ask those commenting on social media about their fourth or fifth bout with Covid, “How many boosters have you had?”, how fast do you think you’d be blocked by them?
Enjoyed reading these comments, which are all well-written and on point. This awful episode in our history will be debated for years to come, and some (e.g., an entire generation of kids kept out of school and their resulting semi-literacy) will pay the price of its folly their entire lives
But this is history now, and the country lives with the consequences of stupid policy decisions. At the moment I’m concerned about the time between today and the upcoming election. What despicable stunts will be play out in the next few months?
“maybe” debated for years to come”
they didnt allow the debates the first time so not hopeful they will in the future
(security concerns)