Sensible leaders like those in Sweden used a light-touch approach, leaving most schools and businesses open and relying on the good sense of the Swedish people to decide how much risk they wished to take based on their health.

The result was that mortality rates were, on average, no higher in Sweden than in most European countries, but the damage to the economy, education and individual liberties was relatively minor.

In the U.S., individual states differed widely in the degree of lockdown required, with places like Florida remaining largely open and places like New York being very restrictive.

The result was that age-adjusted mortality rates in Florida were actually lower than in New York, and school-aged children did not suffer the loss of learning that occurred in closed school systems like Chicago’s.

The health authorities in most countries and particularly in the U.S. lost a great deal of credibility because of what turned out to be so many erroneous statements about such things as how effective lockdowns, masks and vaccines would be.

Had the people at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration been more modest about what they did and did not know, everyone would have been better off.

There is a field of economics called “public choice,” most thoroughly developed by the late Nobel laureate James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock.

In essence, they argued, as have many others, that elected government leaders and bureaucrats are no less self-interested than the population at large.

Many of them refer to themselves as “public servants” when in fact they are as greedy and power-seeking as any in business.