Covid is real. For segments of society, Covid is extremely dangerous. I've only known one person who went through it at its worst. With luck, he'll be more or less back to normal in 2 or 3 months.

So, it's real to this writer. Fine. We have a virus which is very dangerous to some segments and negligible to others. What went wrong?

The government is what went wrong. Federal, State and Local Governments, which should have had our backs, which should have given us good, consistent information---didn't. Covid, rather than being treated as the medical/societal challenge that it was (we've turned the corner) became a means of control, in other words a "gift" to politicians, bureaucrats, virtue warriors, and exponents of agendas too numerous to name.

The Lancet shut down the discussion on the virus's origin. Now, it has no choice but to eat its words.

"Science" became "political science" of the worst sort. Sources which were considered beyond reproach became highly invested in a political slant.

Virtually all social media (all that mattered) shut down discourse. "The debate is over."
Vaccine proponents and the vaccine averse turned out to be the least of the indicators.
Credible medical sources were completely shut out. The "algorithms" were blamed, but of course, the algorithms don't program themselves.

Protests, if they were the "right protests," were not super-spreader events.

Children, who are at virtually no risk, have lost YEARS of academic development. Don't be too quick to jump on the fact that not all schools are great. Of course they aren't. But a normal school day was a blessing for most kids, and it was taken from them by government and by unions, because it suited.

And, worst of all, WORST OF ALL, were the people themselves. We were so willing to hold ourselves up as virtuous if we were on "this side" rather than "that side." We became tribal. Everything that America stood for was revealed to be wall paper. You couldn't have come up with a better Original Outer Limits episode.

We will look back at this sad, depressing episode as revealing the totality of the Nation's character and find that it was severely wanting.