Today it’s clear that the public-health authorities got all kinds of things wrong, and many bad decisions — especially about closing schools — were made in an atmosphere of panic. Still, on the fundamental question of how bad the disease would be, the authorities were more right than their more optimistic critics. But it’s still more than 50 times more death than the early predictions from people who thought the authorities were panicking too quickly. But I’m still not sure Hayes is right about the Covid 10-times-worse scenario being basically identical to this one in its divisions. Yes, long-haul Covid is a real problem, but America is good at ignoring its chronic illness epidemics.

Source: New York Times September 18, 2021 18:56 UTC