In January, Dr. Francis Collins, former head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), gave testimony behind closed doors to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. Collins was Dr. Anthony Fauci’s boss, and though Fauci became infamous for his god-complex answers to interviews, the buck stopped with Collins. He was more likable and a Christian whom the wider public was more inclined to trust. Sadly, though, at the end of the day, Collins was a government-employed bureaucrat who made arbitrary rules and quashed free speech, all in the name of controlling the public through fear of viral infection.

The transcript of the interview was finally released last week, and it includes several infuriating admissions.

First, Collins admitted that there was no scientific basis for social distancing. Here is the relevant exchange:

Q: On March 22nd, 2020, the CDC issued guidance describing social distancing to include remaining out of congregant settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining a distance of approximately six feet from others when possible. We asked Dr. Fauci where the six feet came from and he said it kind of just appeared, is the quote. Do you recall science or evidence that supported the six foot distance?

A: I do not.

Q: Is that I do not recall or I do not see any evidence supporting six feet?

A: I did not see evidence, but I’m not sure I would have been shown evidence at that point.

One can reasonably conclude from these comments that the “six feet apart” rule was completely arbitrary. Yet that directive had a huge impact on policy. Social distancing and the isolation that it encouraged kept schools and churches closed and unconscionably restricted our freedoms. This meant that people died alone in hospitals and that funerals were sparse by necessity. Children were trapped with abusive family members, and mental health declined across the board. Social distancing and the isolation it enforced were an aspect of COVID lockdown measures that were downright inhumane.

Masking was no different. Some of us were suspicious of the efficacy of masking and especially mask mandates from the beginning and ready to ditch them entirely. Before Fauci advocated double masking, he said, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.” He was right the first time, as Collins more or less admitted, at least in the case of kids. Asked if there was any scientific basis for the U.S. government having “directly contradicted the WHO’s recommendation” on masks for kids, Collins answered, “I have no knowledge of that.”

In other words, the men whose job it was to steward public health during a pandemic are essentially now saying that their guidance was the same as a teenage boy’s — it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Another admission by Collins is that he changed his stance on the origin of COVID. While the Wuhan, China-originating virus raged, Collins and Fauci staunchly refuted the lab leak theory. That was despite the Wuhan Institute of Virology being right there at the epicenter and a lab leak being far more logical than a “tainted bat soup at a wet market” theory.

That particular exchange was rather terse:

Q: Is the origin of Covid-19 still unsettled science?

A: Yes.

The COVID confessions keep on coming, and it seems like everything the NIH insisted was a conspiracy seems to be much closer to the truth. The NIH quickly and mightily abused power — and the consequences for that hubris were devastating.