I know women who were trying to conceive and who were spooked by the reports of menstrual irregularities in their friends. Some of them faced the prospect of being fired from their jobs for choosing what they thought was best for their family. Millions of others calculated correctly that they were at low risk to develop a severe case if they contracted Covid, and they avoided the vaccine for whatever reason — because they’d had the disease and recovered, or were young but once had a bad reaction to a shot, or had an issue with blood clotting in their medical history. They faced ostracism or unemployment because public-health officials and the government — backed and amplified by social-media behemoths — were telling them lies about the vaccine. Or “overselling” it, as Birx put it.

Scores of millions of parents figured out that their children weren’t at serious risk and by the summer of 2020 could read credible science showing their kids at school did not pose serious risks to others. Yet they were shut down.

These millions of people have reasons privately to feel vindicated. But they deserve to have someone in public life affirm the fact that they weren’t crazy, that in fact public health did mislead them, shaded the truth, and occasionally abused the trust placed in them.