The 2020-2021 Great Panic or Unprecedented Threat - whichever view you take - is now over in the UK.

On deaths alone future historians will not be able to tell which years it happened in. But perhaps if we hadn't closed down the country they would be able to, some argue. However, some countries didn't lock down - just relied on common sense - and fared no worse. Lockdowns have been terribly damaging to lives and future lives; so to ask this is important.

What precedent has been set by our response? What will people now demand to be "protected" from in the future? Governments have learned how tractable their populations are. What abuses may they now feel legitimised to pursue to consolidate their power? People are divided over whether the media drove the response; or simply reflected a unique threat. Like a mirror.

In my opinion that view is hopelessly naieve. How the media behave transparently influences Gov policy in every other area of life; why make an exception for Covid? A persistent category error made by even the otherwise intelligent during this time has been to claim that lockdowns are "scientific" decisions.

They are not. They are public health policy responses. Political decisions. Science is how a virus works. Lockdowns are political decisions based on relative threat; and should be considered against a cost benefit analysis of the harm they will cause.

This was never done. Those of us who questioned why not were cheaply lumped in with conspiracy theorists, or just silenced. I believe they were not done because the media inflation drove a political response that drained the oxygen from reasoned debate. Literally killed off the space for a rational response to Covid.

The only investigations we should be waiting on today are those looking at how we can prevent the media driving disastrous policies in the future; and so prevent the needless deaths of many thousands of people.