Response to the pandemic was worse than the disease?

 John Tierney:

The Panic Pandemic 

Fearmongering from journalists, scientists, and politicians did more harm than the virus.

The United States suffered through two lethal waves of contagion in the past year and a half. The first was a viral pandemic that killed about one in 500 Americans—typically, a person over 75 suffering from other serious conditions. The second, and far more catastrophic, was a moral panic that swept the nation’s guiding institutions.

Instead of keeping calm and carrying on, the American elite flouted the norms of governance, journalism, academic freedom—and, worst of all, science. They misled the public about the origins of the virus and the true risk that it posed. Ignoring their own carefully prepared plans for a pandemic, they claimed unprecedented powers to impose untested strategies, with terrible collateral damage. As evidence of their mistakes mounted, they stifled debate by vilifying dissenters, censoring criticism, and suppressing scientific research.
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There is more.

Tierney makes a good point.  I think much of this reaction was perpetrated by the left in this country in order to defeat President Trump.  Their hatred of him was greater than their love of this country and its people.   The Democrats' lust for power threw the people under the bus.