Lately, it feels as if the COVID-19 pandemic happened to somebody else — that we were just spectators who watched it all unfold only to forget what we saw. And yet the devastation of pandemic policies remains with us. But the anger and frustration the public once expressed toward the pandemic and its accompanying restrictions seem to have vanished.

Even the media seem to have finally moved on. No longer do liberal commentators wax poetic about how many Sept. 11s the pandemic had equaled in terms of the death count. That comparison, of course, was always facile, but at least it signaled a desire to get to the bottom of things and hold those responsible to account.