One of the great mysteries of the pandemic is why so many countries followed China’s example. In the U.S. and the U.K. especially, lockdowns went from being regarded as something that only an authoritarian government would attempt to an example of “following the science.” But there was never any science behind lockdowns — not a single study had ever been undertaken to measure their efficacy in stopping a pandemic. When you got right down to it, lockdowns were little more than a giant experiment. …

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of policy failures of which to take stock. We do an accounting of many of them in our new book, The Big Fail. But one that looms as large as any, and remains in need of a full reckoning in the public conversation, is the decision to embrace lockdowns. While it is reasonable to think of that policy (in all its many forms, across different sectors of society and the 50 states) as an on-the-fly experiment, doing so demands that we come to a conclusion about the results. For all kinds of reasons, including the country’s deep political divisions, the complexity of the problem, and COVID’s dire human toll, that has been slow to happen. But it’s time to be clear about the fact that lockdowns for any purpose other than keeping hospitals from being overrun in the short-term were a mistake that should not be repeated.

[The 15 Days to Stop the Spread was also a mistake in the short term, but understandable in context. The problem was, though, that the control and power it handed bureaucrats to dictate the way in which Americans lived their lives was WAY too seductive to let go once given to them. Even after it became clear that the COVID virus risk was almost entirely limited to the elderly and infirm, the federal and state officials that seized that power would refuse to let it go for YEARS afterward. The Biden administration is still fighting a case to allow the CDC to impose mask mandates, even though there’s no science that masks actually slowed the spread of the virus. — Ed]