Five years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is no shortage of analysis personifying the virus as the villain. In a sense, it’s understandable: SARS-CoV-2 was the catalyst and the killer that drove much of the pandemic destruction. But painting public health leaders as innocent bystanders and Covid as the boogeyman who made people sick and locked down the economy, destroyed businesses, shuttered schools, censored speech, masked children, and suspended constitutional rights and sacred rituals is deceitful historical revisionism.
On Thursday, a Washington Post headline asserted that “Covid shut schools five years ago. Anxiety, learning loss and more linger.” On Monday, a PBS FRONTLINE headline heralded “A Look Back at How the COVID-19 Pandemic Disrupted the World.” Last week David Wallace-Wells wrote about “How Covid Remade America” in The New York Times. According to Wallace-Wells, “It”…
