There was the whole part about hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths and the moral injury that goes along with societal normalization of mass illness and death for the sake of maximizing economic activity, but so long as we assume the social “cost” of all that is zero… Anyway, economists often talk about how they can account for non-market costs in their analysis, which is already a dubious endeavor. But even then it’s only the costs economists choose to care about. Never mind the vast nonmarket “costs” associated with pandemic policy choices.

To be clear, most Americans supported strong public health measures through winter 2021. Most supported mask mandates through Feb 2022. Walensky and the Biden admin began emphasizing individual responsibility in spring 2021 and steered the public toward that value orientation.

https://twitter.com/JenniferNuzzo/status/1633104214254575616

A majority of Americans supported mask mandates up until Democratic governors removed the last ones that remained and after the public had been inundated with anti-mask-mandate messaging from health officials, media and media-preferred health experts

https://twitter.com/wsbgnl/status/1587726732035260416

One of the most critical leadership failures underlying many of these deaths under the Biden administration was the delay and abandonment of the planned covid OSHA standard, which was derailed by Walensky unilaterally electing to change the mask guidance

nytimes.com/2021/06/10/bus… x.com/CDCDirector/st…
More generally, the pivot to an individualistic, personal responsibility, “Your health is in your hands” approach has been a total disaster

thelancet.com/journals/eclin…