Well, let's face the fact that politicians will exploit any crisis for political self-interest, as Rahm Emanuel pointed out ("Never let a crisis go to waste.") Last year Trump knew that a pandemic seriously handicapped his chances at reelection; he had already been prodding the Federal Reserve for accommodative monetary policy before the outbreak. He was desperate for a return to normalcy. He was jawboning opening Easter services, even though states and municipalities had responsibility for health security under the Constitution. He was using federal spending for education as leverage to force school districts to return to in-person instruction (among other things, this freed up a stay-at-home parent to return to the workforce). He notably feuded with top government health experts, notably Fauci. He lobbied the FDA for early vaccine approval. He steamrolled his conservative Congressional base for large-scale relief spending and then complained he wanted much larger stimulus payments to households.
Trump wasn't alone. Biden and a Democrat-controlled Congress quickly added a $1.9 T spending bill to supplement the earlier one signed by Trump, this one with larger stimulus checks to households. Kamala Harris and Gov. Cuomo (D-NY) questioned the reliability of vaccines approved Trump's FDA, although the approval process is nonpartisan. Governors (especially Dem ones like Cuomo, Whitmer (MI), and Newsom (CA) grabbed unprecedented powers, and earned (at least earlier in the pandemic) sky-high approval ratings, compared to Trump's tepid ones.
To say I, as a libertarian, have had issues with public policy is an understatement. Now I oppose government censorship, even implied ones like the Biden Administration targeting Facebook for not cracking down enough about "misinformation" about vaccines. Government monopolies controlled vaccine distributions, threatening to sanction unauthorized vaccinations deviating from official quotas of winners and losers. I had nephews and nieces, not in a higher health risk group like me in terms of age and health issues but in favored groups like nursing, teachers and government meteorologists, but their shots weeks before I did. We had vaccines in inventory undistributed or unused doses being wasted. In my journal posts, I've been following some of the evidence supporting partial/reduced and/or deferred second dosing; yes, this did not follow approval protocols. but it is something that has been successfully deployed under scarce vaccine supplies in the developing world. I'm convinced a more comprehensive first dose first approach would have had a mitigation effect sooner in the greater population (elderly people were not the ones spreading the virus; I do agree prioritizing vaccinating older people was the biggest factor controlling COVID-19 mortality from a risk-based approach.) Of course, I don't think the Draconian economic shutdowns and arbitrary capacity restrictions were warranted or necessarily effective. Most infections occurred in private homes.
The rise of the far more contagious Delta variant (1000X more virus in infected people) as spiked vaccine breakthroughs from roughly 2% of cases to about 20%. (Keep in mind that still means about 80% of cases are from the 30% of unvaccinated people's share of the overall population. And vaccinated people account for roughly 3% of related hospitalized people and under 1% of mortality.) Anti-vaxxers exploit ignorance about vaccine effectiveness. The mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) effectiveness ranges about 90+% and that probably drops about 10 points for Delta. The vaccine doesn't prevent infection in a pandemic as much as mitigate more serious complications. To a certain extent, the protection for older or immunosuppressed people may be more limited; the latter group amounts to nearly half of hospitalized breakthroughs, although only about 3% of the US population, and so CDC is reviewing possible (third) booster shots for these people.
I've seen lots of libertarians (e.g., Tom Woods and Nate Thurston) ridicule COVID policies aimed at children. I've ridiculed this in a recent journal post, noting children do spread viruses. (I think I got all the childhood diseases, like measles and the mumps, I didn't catch them from my folks or younger siblings but at school.) Libertarians tend to focus on the point of self-ownership and the right to take one's own risks. Ans so Woods, etc., look at the disproportionate fewer deaths among children and imply policy is stupid from a risk standpoint. A basic point, through, is that children can pass the disease to immunosuppressed youths or even older relatives. I and other libertarians believe spread of a contagion is a violation of the non-aggression principle.
We are now looking at progressives looking at mandates, vaccine passports for travel, etc. First of all, my preferred approach would probably be something like offer refundable federal/state tax credits for each vaccinated household members. It looks like the Dems want to require vaccination or mandatory weekly testing for public sector employees. I can understand this, particularly for public health employees or others interfacing the public. And you can argue they pose a risk of infection to other workers (in in-person vs. remote settings), including vaccinated employees. I'm less tolerant of the return of maskmania, including targeting vaccinated people. As I've repeatedly pointed out, the primary reason for wearing masks is to control exposure to virus-laden (symptomatic) respiratory splatter. Conventional facemasks vs. N95 respirators provide little, if any protection of bioaerosols. We need to do some education on recognizing the signs of COVID symptoms and the need to self-isolate and test if you experience symptoms.
