Wanted: a Covid Truth-and-Reconciliation committee

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Mar 04, 2022

How much has the Covid epidemic cost us, apart from the obvious medical costs?

Not too much, actually.

Covid has ended many thousands of lives, and caused suffering, ranging from mild to severe, to millions more. But it is not Covid—that is, not the disease—that has shut down thousands of small businesses, kept millions of children out of school, driven millions of adults into depression, forced the postponement of important medical screenings, and drastically curtailed our civil liberties. All those nasty effects—which are so commonly attributed to “the pandemic”—were the results of public-policy decisions, made by our political leaders.

Now that the medical threat is gradually fading, the same political leaders poised to declare victory and claim credit for beating the epidemic. Not so fast, please.

In the first place, there is little if any solid evidence that the public-policy response hastened the end of the epidemic. The Covid epidemic spread, crested, and finally ebbed in roughly the same pattern everywhere, regardless of whether people wore masks, took vaccines, or stayed at home from work.

Second, and more important, the public-policy choices took a demonstrably heavy toll on our public health, morale, education, and economy. It is at least debatable (I have made the argument at length) that the public-policy measures have cost more lives than the disease itself.

So before we close this sorry chapter of our history, I propose that we make an honest effort to weigh the overall effects of our public-policy choices, to identify the mistakes that were made, so that we may be ready to avoid them in the future.

I make this suggestion realizing that the odds are stacked heavily against its adoption. The political forces that have dominated the public discussion during the last two years, and supported the public-policy decisions that were taken, will not readily submit to any critical appraisal.

Have you noticed that even as they rescind mask mandates and vaccine-passport requirements, health officials make it clear that they are prepared to reinstate those policies if they see a need? Three years ago it was unthinkable that two or three unelected bureaucrats could tell free citizens what they must wear, or forbid them from gathering in public, or force them to divulge medical information. Must we now grant them that power in perpetuity?

Tight limits on our actions and our movements—that is, restrictions on fundamental liberties—were justified by the invocation of “emergency” legislation, which authorized executives to take action in the absence of legislation. An “emergency” does not ordinarily last for two years or more. Over that period of time, legislators certainly had ample time to discuss the best options and devise the most prudent laws to meet the crisis. But our lawmakers are still reluctant to end the state of emergency, and those in executive offices are loath to surrender the extraordinary power they have wielded.

If we are emerging from the Covid era, it is not because of an extreme and inconsistent public-policy response to the epidemic. It is because the disease has taken its toll and run its course—as diseases always do. But we cannot safely say that the Covid era has ended until we demand that our political leaders justify the steps they have taken, and the mischief they have caused—until we have resolved not to make the same tragic mistakes again.