What Worked on Covid

I have not read the comments. I already know what they will say. Tom Frieden writing at the Wall Street Journal is pretty forthright in his estimation of what reduced the number of deaths during the pandemic. Death is indeed the first number to look at. It continues to be reasonable to weigh this against lost jobs and financial hardship. Those were real and continue to have effects. Though as I never tire of pointing out, much of that was not government doing, but individual voluntary responses. I am less impressed by the claims of lost academic progress. Schools don't much matter to begin with, and individual student losses over the years, such as to extended illnesses, usually rebound within two years. I get it that some people have real mask hardship because of speech or hearing problems, and more occasionally impaired breathing, but mostly, it was an inexpensive minor solution that people just didn't like. 

Long covid likely exists, but all of us have tendencies to stuff our explanations for bad things into whatever basket is at hand. Measuring the number of years of life lost to it is going to be uncertain for a long time to come. It is also going to be difficult to separate from the increased traction that the Scientologists and other anti-vaxxers got through this, convincing people not to get vaccines, and thus decreasing health and lifespans that way.  Do we blame that on the illness, the government, the public, or those advocates? But the vaccination numbers are down, and we will pay the price.