We told you so. There’s probably a more polite way to say that, but who cares? We are long past the time for politeness regarding the derelictions of our leadership class when it came to Covid-19. The American public has every reason to be angry. And the small, maligned group of scientists, journalists, and political figures who challenged the wisdom of America’s designated Covid experts deserves an apology.
In the first weeks of the pandemic in 2020, nobody knew much about this mysterious new disease. People were scared, and they were eager to follow the advice of the public health authorities. The experts, from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) chief Anthony Fauci to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and on down to local officials, all seemed confident they knew what they were doing. And they wasted no time telling us what to do.
We all had to stay six feet apart. Better yet, we should avoid leaving the house at all. Weddings, funerals, and religious services were cancelled. Businesses closed. Schoolchildren were consigned to remote “learning.” The media celebrated an unhinged Florida lawyer who roamed beaches dressed as the grim reaper, while authorities in San Clemente, California, filled a skateboard park with sand to protect local teenagers from the dangers of fresh air. Experts showed an eerie unanimity on the scientific mysteries surrounding Covid: Where did it come from? How did it spread? What treatments might be effective against it? The only acceptable answers to those questions were the ones passed down from the World Health Organization, America’s Centers for Disease Control, and similar authorities.
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James B. Meigs is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a City Journal contributing editor, cohost of the How Do We Fix It? podcast, and the former editor of Popular Mechanics
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
