The further we get away from the pandemic, the less anyone will remember that it suddenly became the leading cause of death, or one of the leading causes of death, in many countries. “Scandals” like this one will seem more significant than the fact that policymakers were acting on the imperative to keep even more people from dying.

Confronted with the same circumstances and choices, I don’t think any armchair critic would have done any better. The per capita rate of sickness and death in U.S. states whose leaders boasted the loudest about having few or no restrictions whatsoever suggests that many, many more people would be dead if we had taken their advice.

But the further we get away from the emergency period, the less any of this will matter. We won’t learn anything.