We are now 1095 days into that 15 days. COVID is still with us. Many people are still panicked. Over a million people have died, and COVID tyranny still rules the land. Everything is changed, yet nothing was accomplished save the development of the vaccine.

The invaluable Brownstone Institute has a look back that is worth a read, and rightly places the blame for how this all began on President Trump. At the moment of greatest peril during his presidency, he turned over to bureaucrats the power to fundamentally reshape America in their image.

On March 16, 2020, President Donald Trump gathered with Deborah Birx, Anthony Fauci, and others, to announce “15 Days to Slow the Spread.” That slogan of course has become the source of ridicule nationally and internationally.

Still, it was the start of the transformation of life in the United States for its entire population, and the inauguration of a new economic, political, and social system. It was supposed to be a short experiment in virus control but it continued all the way until the presidential election and then long after under the new regime of the new president Joseph Biden.

This moment in history kicked off a radical upheaval of almost all aspects of economics, law, and public health, bankrupting hundreds of thousands of businesses, breaking supply chains the world over, creating a painful labor shortage, inspiring unprecedented levels of public debt accumulation, enabling a monetary inflation without modern precedent, and creating strife, division, and general anger and demoralization among the public. From a policy perspective, it paved the way for the vaccine mandates that are causing millions to lose their jobs.

Trump’s words unleashed it all at this historic and catastrophic event, while demonstrating little regard to the Bill of Rights, historic liberties, or the experience of thousands of years of public health experience.

I would add to the list of ills the devastation inflicted on children, who will never get a vital part of their education back, who have suffered terrible mental distress and unprecedented levels of depression.

Trust in our public health institutions have cratered, with good reason, but likely devastating effects. Skepticism about the COVID vaccine and CDC mask recommendations have triggered a rejection among many parents of all vaccine recommendations. Many of those vaccines are indeed life saving, and children will die due to the lies of public health officials.

The censorship industrial complex was hypercharged during COVID, and the invasion of our election systems by private entities was justified by the COVID emergency. “Zuckerbucks” became a thing because Trump endorsed those 15, then 30, then indefinite days to slow the spread.

Our health care system has been crippled not by COVID, but by COVID mitigation measures. COVID is no longer a crisis for hospitals and doctors–COVID patients are relatively rare in hospitals these days. But the system is worse off now than before. Doctors and nurses were actually laid off during the COVID crisis while hospitals stopped non-emergency procedures. Many health care workers simply left for good. Hospitals actually treated fewer patients during COVID than before, destroying revenues as well.

Ironically, Trump’s own justification for doubting the election results are the result of his COVID hysteria.

Justifying the emergency powers was based upon a fundamental lie: that public health measures could effectively stop the spread of a highly contagious respiratory virus. They cannot and did not.

Sweden, a target of Trump’s ire because it chose a more rational path during COVID, has the lowest excess mortality among its citizens in the developed world. The United States has one of the higest–and that is because of the COVID mitigation measures, not COVID itself.

The current economic crisis has its roots in that 15 days–trillions of dollars were created out of thin air, sparking inflation just as was predicted by many economists. It was necessary to do this because government put the brakes on the economy, not because COVID was raging through the population.

COVID was a terrible disease. COVID mitigation measures have been a cancer eating away at our society.