There Should Be A Reckoning

Even if it's nothing more than a South Africa-type "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", the purpose of which was to expose the injustices of apartheid for all to see, we deserve more than we're likely to get:

A global consensus has emerged that governmental responses to covid-19, which mainly involved shutdowns, limitations on mobility and other aspects of freedom, mask mandates, and vaccination requirements, did an enormous amount of harm. The issue is sometimes posed in terms of whether governments’ responses did more damage than the epidemic did. But that isn’t actually the right question. The epidemic happened. The question is whether the epidemic + government restrictions on freedom was better or worse than the epidemic alone would have been. And the answer is, worse. The net effect of government responses was catastrophically bad...

The analysis synthesizes 600 publications with a focus on meta-analyses, systematic reviews, global reports and multi-country studies. This cumulative academic research shows that the collateral damage of the pandemic response was substantial, wide-ranging and will leave behind a legacy of harm for hundreds of millions of people in the years ahead. Many original predictions are broadly supported by the research data including: a rise in non-Covid excess mortality, mental health deterioration, child abuse and domestic violence, widening global inequality, food insecurity, lost educational opportunities, unhealthy lifestyle behaviours, social polarization, soaring debt, democratic backsliding and declining human rights. Young people, individuals and countries with lower socioeconomic status, women and those with pre-existing vulnerabilities were hit hardest.

Some have called for Fauci and others to be criminally prosecuted, but I am not aware of any basis for such action. I do think, however, that we need a political accounting. Those who used covid as an excuse to exercise essentially fascistic powers, like Newsom, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, and Minnesota’s Tim Walz, should be humiliated and driven from office. But so far, that isn’t happening.

Update, 5/29/23:  Yes, a Truth and Reconciliation-type commission is certainly called for:

The petty tyrants and their lies have been so thoroughly exposed that they are now in full consequence avoidance mode. The first thing that leftists like to do when ducking responsibility is to rewrite history and pretend that none of it happened. Tyrannical garden gnome and alleged physician Anthony Fauci repeatedly insists that he didn’t want anything shut down. Randi Weingarten — the most evil woman in America — swears that she and the cauldron-stirring teachers’ union she runs never tried to keep schools closed.

Update, 5/31/23:  More:

So all of that unpleasantness is simply disappearing from medical journals and research archives. And the media would like us all to pretend that it never happened. But it did happen. And if we don’t learn anything from all of this, it will happen again when the next pandemic inevitably comes along. The need for speed must be moderated by adhering to proven practices from the past. And if you’re trusting the government to deal with you honestly and fairly based on the best available science rather than “The Science,” I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in purchasing.