I’ve often heard it said that COVID restrictions were "all for nothing". I sincerely wish that were true. They were worse than nothing. They were arguably the most senselessly destructive set of policies in all human history. The net decrease in aggregate wellbeing is staggering.

I really think most people don't understand the full extent to which both the direct and indirect costs of lockdowns, suspension of elective surgeries, and universal masking will bear their mark on humanity going forward. Scars don't just disappear.

Even just the forced masking alone has led to a whole generation of kids becoming socioemotionally retarded. Not to mention the increased smartphone/device addiction throughout society more generally.

Social connectivity btw groups decreased massively. Everyone is more insular.

The lockdowns directly killed perhaps a million or so, but indirectly killed far more by leading to breakdown of the global supply chain, catalyzing a new crisis of starvation & poverty in the third world

Medical appointments were missed. Routine non-COVID vaccinations plummeted

We've successfully normalized the coercive (both literally through mandates but also through social pressure) thrusting of poorly tested pharmaceutical interventions on people who by and large had nothing to fear from the virus. That trend's not going away.