Commentary
These days, many people are justifying the egregious government response to the virus based on the claim of ignorance. We just didn’t know and could not know, they say. It’s preposterous. It was obvious from early on, to anyone who cared to look, that COVID was a textbook respiratory virus and that lockdowns would change nothing long-term about its trajectory. We all knew from all history that muscling people, closing schools and business, and introducing travel restrictions and quarantines would impose major damage on society, markets, and public health.
There really is no excuse.
Below I reprint my own warning from Jan. 27, 2020. Yes, I would change some of it now but not much. This was published nearly two months before the lockdowns hit the United States. I wish now that I had explained in this short space the role of acquired immunities, the need for medical doctors to focus on therapeutics, and the essential requirement for society to continue to function as normally as possible in the midst of a pandemic….