COVID-19 is no longer a thing
If we have a pandemic that is much worse than COVID-19, more people will die because of the way many public health "experts" behaved in 2020.
COVID-19 drastically affected our lives for two years, but the impact of it is fading. The New York Times admitted - probably much to its chagrin - that most people even in liberal areas are treating COVID-19 as an influenza infection or like the common cold. Most people are no longer wearing masks or even testing for COVID-19 if they experience the classic symptoms. Various coronaviruses have been causing colds for a long time, though rhinoviruses are the most common cause of colds.
We should have been where we are now a while ago. Even back in 2020, we knew that the fatality rate for COVID-19 was very low for everyone except for the elderly, the immunocompromised, and people with comorbidities. Obviously, protecting vulnerable populations is very important, and there was a legitimate need for caution in the early days of the pandemic. But we knew in the fall of 2020 that the fatality rate for children and teenagers was 0.003% and the fatality rate for adults under 50 was 0.02%. Keep in mind that this was before vaccines were available. We knew the virus would become endemic, and it has. But we robbed children of in-person education because teachers' unions demanded it.
Months-long quarantine orders were never justified, much less years-long orders. In fact, quarantine orders led to a significant increase in deaths of despair: Alcoholism, suicide and drug abuse, not to mention the damaging effect depression has on physical health. Opening the economy in 2020 was never a question of lives against money. It was always a question of how to save lives and preserve quality of life. But if you questioned The Narrative, you were a murderer, in addition to being a blasphemer and a heretic. I use those last two words intentionally, because of the intense cult mentality surrounding the pandemic.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 created serious divisions in our culture and deepened existing divisions. Some of this is because of rabble-rousers who were unreasonably resistant to public health authorities. But some of this was because public health "experts" beclowned themselves. The most ridiculous example was telling people to wear masks during sex, which would do nothing to prevent the spread of a highly contagious respiratory virus. No, I am never letting that one go, because it is a perfect example of how insane some "experts" were back then.
If we have a pandemic that is much worse than COVID-19, more people will die because of the way many public health "experts" behaved in 2020 and 2021. That is why the "experts" who were wrong then need to fully apologize now, without making excuses. The "experts" need to be fully transparent about the errors they made and the overly restrictive mitigation policies they endorsed. We need to continue working to repair the damaged trust and cultural divisions created and deepened during the pandemic, so that we can deal with future pandemics in a sane and much less divisive manner.