"Granting public health agencies extraordinary powers was a major error..."
UNICEF unveiled its "Pandemic Classroom," a model made up of 168 empty desks, each seat representing one million children living in countries where schools were almost entirely closed during the COVID pandemic lockdowns, at the U.N. Headquarters in New York City on March 2, 2021.
Authored by Kevin Stocklin: It
was four years ago, in March 2020, that health officials declared
COVID-19 a pandemic and America began shutting down schools, closing
small businesses, restricting gatherings and travel, and other lockdown
measures to “slow the spread” of the virus.
To
mark that grim anniversary, a group of medical and policy experts
released a report, called “COVID Lessons Learned,” which assesses the
government’s response to the pandemic. According to the report, that
response included a few notable successes, along with a litany of
failures that have taken a severe toll on the population.
During
the pandemic, many governments across the globe acted in lockstep to
pursue authoritative policies in response to the disease, locking
down populations, closing schools, shutting businesses, sealing
borders, banning gatherings, and enforcing various mask and vaccine
mandates. What were initially imposed as short-term mandates and
emergency powers given to presidents, ministers, governors, and health
officials soon became extended into a longer-term expansion of official
power.
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