I hereby invoke my old fart's right to rant about what I think is the "truth"
1. Throughout the entire COVID period (including to this day), we have let personal politics override impartial judgments. We have to get beyond politicians from the our side were always right and the other guys were always wrong.
2. COVID brought out the best and worst in us. We saw medical personnel, even those who were retired or living in "safer" areas, risk their lives and mental health in the darkest days, We saw hoarders, resellers of scarce goods, people jumping the vaccination queue, people defrauding the recovery funds, and so on. We saw favoritism and inequities on what had to be shut down. (If your Costcos and Walmarts are allowed to remain open with large crowds because they sell necessary goods, why not smaller clothing stores with minimal crowds as one that bugged me).
3. Retrospectively we have a better idea how we could have handled COVID better. I'm sympathetic to decisions which we now see as being non-optimal. However, I'm less forgiving for decisions that were not re-evaluated over time for their effectiveness and werre left in place for far too long.
4. The best response undoubtedly involved shutdowns, widespread vaccinations, and reopening as the threat diminished. As stated before, our politicians too often chose to go hard one way or another, often using or abusing statistical data to justify their positions.
5. In the initial phases of the pandemic we were grasping at straws for anything that might work. We shouldn't get worked up about initial efforts to shift production for more intubation equipment, getting people to sing Happy Birthday 10 times while washing our hands, hope for anti-malarial or other drugs, and everything else we tried before vaccines arrived.
6. We have failed to address the impact on education that occurred. Many talk about the impact of the remote "learning", but we don't seem to have done anything to rectify it afterwards.
7. The ignorance of the American public was on full display. I can't believe a supposedly educated nation can consider implanting microchips in the vaccine, changing DNA, white versus black vaccines, and other fantasies as real occurrences.
8. It's fortuitous or even a miracle that we were so far along with research on RNA vaccines, especially since scientist had first resisted the idea (I think); and we were able to react so quickly to COVID without major side effects.
9. Discussions whether the source of COVID was a lab leak or due to wet markets is non-productive and fr too politicized. Procedures should be placed on both to reduce the risks in the future.