Here at The Prickly Pear, we were quite skeptical of the advice the US government was putting out about how to deal with Covid.  We particularly took the position that medical considerations could not be viewed in isolation from other factors such as the economy, personal liberty, and the education and welfare of children.

The approach being pushed by the medical establishment and government we thought was too extreme and narrow-minded.

We were one of the earliest and strongest backers of the Great Barrington Declaration.  In that statement, esteemed doctors argued that locking up the healthy, while not really protecting the vulnerable elderly was a bad thing to do.

Conversely, the Governor of New York Mario Cuomo was a study of bad policy,  devastating the elderly population in nursing homes.  For his egregious leadership, many on the left wished that he, Cuomo were President.  He spread falsehoods so effectively on television, the disgraced governor was awarded an Emmy.

While we fully recognized that in the very early stages, authorities did not know completely what was happening, and thus could be given the benefit of the doubt, it became clear early on that much of what they proposed was just nonsense that could be figured out by informed people who were not doctors. But it is equally well to say, if authorities did not know really what was going on with the virus, that this is even a better argument for going slow, protecting the economy and liberty, and not acting as arrogantly and arbitrarily as they did.

If you know in your heart you don’t really know what you are doing, don’t be so eager to cram your views down others’ throats.

We attacked the campaign for masks simply because it was clear that the virus was much smaller than the large pores in the masks, and concluded in one piece that it was “equivalent to putting up a chain link fence to keep out mosquitoes.”

Remarkably, the early recommendation of masking not only stuck despite subsequent evidence but in fact became a religious amulet of sorts for the Fauci followers.  One still sees masks on occasion as the Fauci followers practice their religion.  They still can be found worshipping outside while riding a bicycle or riding alone in a car. The holiest act it seems was to mask toddlers, a group hardly subject to the virus, yet very susceptible to having their social and speech development seriously impaired.  Many people were thrown off airplanes because parents could not keep their two-year-olds masked to the satisfaction of medical experts such as flight attendants and passengers.

It is refreshing to see some doctors admit their errors and apologize.

Then there was the “six-foot rule” that had people barking at you when you dared to step out of your assigned circle that was dutifully placed on floors in all manner of commercial establishments.

We always loved the rules in restaurants.  Come masked until reaching your table.  Remove said mask and talk loudly at close quarters with numerous friends for an hour or more sharing spittle, but then re-mask as you traverse the dangerous fifteen feet to the door.  That short distance to and from the table to the door had to be masked or mankind was surely doomed.

Even as long as a year ago, officials involved in these decisions began to admit they were wrong about this arbitrary and contradictory policy.

Officials cut off the ability to travel, and employment opportunities, and had people banned from social media, and other civil liberties if people had acquired natural immunity and claimed that equivalent to being jabbed.  They denied that natural immunity was better or at least equivalent to the flimsy and short-term “protection” provided by experimental vaccines with unknown side effects. But the short-term protection provided by “vaccines” was in fact admitted in the subsequent quest to get people frequently boosted.  Effective vaccines don’t need boosting.  Moreover, officials refused to allow any documentation of natural immunity to be used.  Only Covid vaccination “papers” were valid.  Well, this myth as well is dying.

Then there was the controversy over the origins of the pandemic.  President Trump suggested China was the source and was widely heralded as an idiot and racist.  Senator Tom Cotton got his share of grief as well even though simple logic suggested that the Wuhan Lab was the source of experiments on bat viruses that was conducted by the Chinese, apparently with funding provided by Dr. Fauci.  Of late though, reluctantly both the Department of Energy and FBI admit a lab leak is the most likely source of a pandemic that killed millions and upset the world economy.

Can we now talk about who pays for these mistakes?

More and more officials need to come forward and admit their errors and apologize to their fellow citizens whom they banned from Thanksgiving dinners, hospital visitations for dying relatives, through off airplanes, and cynically denied employment.  These officials destroyed public education and set loose a terrible inflation that has harmed the whole world.

A full public inquiry is necessary and we would also like an apology.