Harvard Published One Of The Worst Studies In History About COVID-19 Transmission

We're just a few hours from the start of 2026. But it's important to never forget just how ridiculous and absurd what the COVID-19 pandemic did to the credibility of our "experts" and the country's most prestigious organizations and academic institutions. 

In a study that flew under the radar several years ago, a team of health "experts" from literally Harvard Medical School teamed up with the remarkably named "Lancet Commission on Reparations and Restributive Justice" to create one of the most nonsensical, insane, laughable pieces of "research" ever published on COVID outcomes.

That's not an exaggeration. Despite living through years of offensively idiotic publications, such as papers saying that mask mandates stopped transmission based on a phone survey. Or even more recently, another modeling study that was widely shared by the usual misinformation specialists on social media claiming that the COVID vaccine prevented deaths from falls and drowning.

RELATED: No, This Viral Study Doesn’t Prove The COVID Vaccine Worked To Prevent Deaths

Outpacing even those in preposterous, unjustified conclusions is this study from Claudine Gay's Harvard and a group from one of our most "well-respected" medical journals. It'd be hard to believe it's real, if it wasn't such a perfect example of how politics has completely decimated trust in once-reputable institutions. 

Cambridge, MA - May 25: Harvard University President-elect Claudine Gay is seated during the 372nd Commencement at Harvard University. (Photo by Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

 Harvard Study Makes Insane Claims About COVID Transmission

Reading the study is one of the more punishing experiences imaginable, a masterpiece of nonsensical assumptions, laughable modeling, hypocrisy and extraordinary stupidity. 

Just look at the results section of their piece for an example. "While there are compelling moral and historical arguments for racial-injustice interventions such as reparations, our study considers potential health benefits in the form of reduced SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk. A restitutive program targeted towards Black individuals would not only decrease COVID-19 risk for recipients of the wealth redistribution; the mitigating effects would also be distributed across racial groups, benefiting the population at large," they wrote. 

That's correct. The argument from researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Lancet is that paying reparations to descendants of slavery in the United States would have reduced COVID transmission across the entire US population. This study was peer-reviewed, meaning that several other "experts" read it and signed off on it. If anyone ever argues with you about a study being "peer-reviewed," just tell them that this one passed it, which tells you how little it matters. 

Here's what they did to make this claim and thoroughly discredit Harvard once and for all.

They looked at the state of Louisiana. One state out of 50. Then they compared COVID transmission in Louisiana to…South Korea. The reason for this is because, according to them, South Korea doesn't have a "large, segregated subgroup of the population composed of the descendants of enslaved persons." 

This jaw-droppingly moronic methodology apparently ignores that there might be many other differences between the populations of Louisiana and South Korea. Like, for example, underlying health or obesity rates. It also ignores that COVID transmission, within specific windows, is influenced by seasonality, variants, and many other considerations. 

Regardless, the conclusions they reached found that by choosing a random comparison of Louisiana to another country that makes no sense and has no meaningful value, paying the descendants of slaves reparations of between $250,000 per person and $800,000 per household would have reduced COVID transmission in the state by between 31% and 68%. 

It's so insane it's hard to even know where to start. 

You might be wondering how they arrived at these numbers. Well, effectively, they created a model that assumed that income prevents COVID transmission, a mind-blowing assumption considering COVID is an endemic virus that infects everyone, regardless of income. That model assumed a "R-naught" rate for COVID transmission that is not reliable, since it relies on testing and positivity, not actual infection rates. They then used this model to compare two completely disconnected places for all of two months. 

Because Louisiana's "R-naught" rate dropped below 1, in their made up numbers, two months after South Korea, reparations would have prevented COVID infections. Again, it's hard to find the words to describe the level of incompetence and stupidity necessary to come up with this criteria, make this model, and publish the results. Utterly bewildering. 

Even worse are comments made by Dr. Eugene Richardson, an assistant professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, and one of the lead authors of the study. Robinson told CNN in an email that  "The effects of racial justice interventions on Black/white health disparities are rarely investigated, which forms part of how systemic racism is reproduced.

"Our study simply gives yet another example of how racism gets into people’s bodies and makes them sick," he continued, "Which can be added to this litany (of evidence for reparations)."

When you consider that this was written by an influential member of the Harvard Medical School faculty, you can begin to understand why trust in higher education has dipped to all-time lows. This is nonsense. "Racism getting into bodies" had nothing to do with COVID transmission, and it's the height of idiocy to suggest that it did.

Not to mention that South Korea wound up with the literal highest confirmed COVID case rate of any country on earth by the time counting stopped. Not among the highest, the literal highest. What's the explanation for that, you might wonder? Importantly, there isn't one, and nobody will ever ask Richardson to provide one.

The study authors also claim that the relatively higher risk of severe illness or death black Americans faced from COVID wasn't due to preexisting underlying conditions like cancer or diabetes, or a "personal failure" to follow public health guidance. No, it's because of racism and lack of reparations, of course.

Amazing. For years, these same "experts" called anyone who didn't wear a mask a "grandma killer" or a "COVIDiot." They demonized anyone who didn't want to be coerced into getting a COVID vaccine. If a prominent COVID skeptic fell ill, they cheered and said that person deserved it. Now though, we can't blame personal decisions for contracting the virus, if that person falls under a protected racial class. Hypocrisy at its finest.

This is the level of research being conducted by Harvard Medical School. They partnered with a commission from The Lancet, a medical journal. This was rapidly published and passed peer review. It was glowingly covered by CNN. It's insanity, based on two months of a model comparing South Korea to Louisiana. It's so dumb it beggars belief. Oh, and these are the same people who said comparing Sweden to other countries wasn't allowed, only their Nordic neighbors. Unbelievable.

COVID might not dominate discussion across the general public these days, but this level of stupidity certainly dominates the halls of Ivy League institutions and medical journals. And that's the real public health threat.