The COVID-19 pandemic began more than five years ago. The vaccine for the virus was released more than four years ago. And yet we’re still learning information about those things — like the fact that Joe Biden’s administration downplayed the risk of myocarditis from the vaccine. I know it’s shocking that Team Biden wouldn’t be fully forthcoming about health issues, but stick with me.

The latest news comes in the form of a 55-page interim report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson. Its executive summary lays out the basics:

For years, Biden officials at HHS and its subcomponent agencies withheld crucial health information from the Subcommittee and the public. Many of Chairman Johnson’s more than 70 oversight letters to the Biden administration were either completely ignored or inadequately addressed. Now, under a new administration and a new HHS secretary, HHS is beginning to produce records, pursuant to the chairman’s subpoena, that should have been provided years ago, without redactions, to Congress and the public.

This interim report highlights records the Subcommittee has reviewed regarding HHS’s awareness of and response to cases of myocarditis — a type of heart inflammation — following COVID-19 vaccination.

The report further lays out “evidence of the Biden administration’s efforts to downplay and delay warning the public about the risks of myocarditis associated with the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.” The warnings came as early as February 2021, when the Israeli Ministry of Health notified their American counterparts of “large reports of myocarditis, particularly in young people, following the administration of the Pfizer vaccine.” Our Mark Alexander wrote about it in June 2021.

According to the Senate report, the Biden administration’s decision to delay a formal alert in favor of quietly posting “clinical consideration” on the CDC website “jeopardized the public’s health.”

However, it’s worse than even this report indicates.

The administration put pressure on social media outlets and received full cooperation from Leftmedia “fact-checkers” to suppress and censor even questions about the vaccines. That happened while Biden mandated the shot for various large groups of people — including perfectly healthy young people in the military — and shamed anyone who didn’t comply, falsely declaring it a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” in July 2021.

Heaven forbid anyone suggest alternative drugs for the treatment of COVID or refer to basics like natural immunity (which the CDC belatedly “discovered” in August 2022). Such “misinformation” was a guaranteed ticket to censorship.

As for the vaccine, it didn’t take long at all for the initial promises of 95% effectiveness in providing immunity to give way to an admission that it wasn’t nearly that effective in preventing infection, even with umpteen boosters. The CDC quietly updated its myocarditis data in September 2022.

The New York Times got around to reporting side effects instead of dismissing them as misinformation about a year ago.

The establishment lied about the origins of COVID, as well as masks and social distancing, so it’s hardly surprising that there was a cover-up of adverse side effects from the prized vaccine.

What makes this story almost amusing, however, is that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were among the first to sow doubt about the vaccine, way back in 2020.

“Well, I think that’s going to be an issue for all of us,” Harris responded before the 2020 election when asked if she’d trust a vaccine that President Trump helped usher through the approval process. “I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump,” she added. “I will not take his word for it.”

Biden agreed: “I trust vaccines, I trust scientists, but I don’t trust Donald Trump.” Naturally, the Leftmedia followed suit.

Days after the election, Pfizer and Moderna announced new vaccines, helped in large part by Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which helped them clear the regulatory hurdles. Trump was certainly pleased to have cleared obstacles out of the way, although the announcement came too late to help him win the election.

Now, the roles are reversed. Given the Democrats’ gross politicization of the vaccine, as well as increasing questions about its efficacy and side effects, Republicans soon soured on it. Trump’s most ardent supporters practically memory-holed his role in its speedy development. After Democrats exploited COVID by sowing doubt about anything Trump did to win the election, they were suddenly the world’s foremost vaccine champions.

Trust the (political) science.

The truly sad results of the outrageous misinformation and censorship foisted on us by the Left are that people died or suffered adverse health issues, all while trust in government and media — which should be trustworthy — plummeted. Those things will have lasting effects far beyond “the jab.”

Follow Nate Jackson on X/Twitter.