my critique of the government's covid policy was not a right-libertarian critique, although it often ended up aligning with the right-libertarian position. i never took the position that religious beliefs overrode the science, or that personal freedoms were more valuable than public health. rather, my analysis was the following:
1) the science did not uphold mask mandates for cloth masks. viruses are much smaller than porous cloth. this was well understood and the science was well established - there was no hope of slowing the virus down by ordering people to wear completely ineffective cloth masks. in order to be effective at all, a mask mandate would have to involve the kind of masks surgeons wear, and we had a severe shortage of these masks, which needed to be hoarded for use in hospitals. the mask mandate was not science-based but was in broad terms extremely anti-science. the real reason the government ordered a mask mandate was not to slow down the pandemic but to increase consumer confidence and try to prevent the economy from collapsing.
2) the science did uphold quarantining the elderly in geriatric facilities and strongly advising that those over 55 avoid all human interaction as much as possible, but the government tried to prevent that science-based policy by arguing it would create lonely geriatrics, as though being lonely is worse than being dead. ohhhhhhhhhh, look at alllll the lone-ly peo-ple. dada dada...
3) social distancing was a double-edged sword. if you did this very rigorously, it might help. but, if you did this wrong, you're just helping the virus evolve by creating selective pressures for air borne pathogens, and it's the latter that seems to have happened.
4) mass vaccination was a dubious approach because the virus was evolving too fast. in the end, mass vaccination failed. in 2026, covid-19 is one of the selection of viruses that make up the disease referred to as the common cold. it's still spreading rampantly. people are getting it and not even noticing. that is what the smart people said was going to happen in the end on day one. there was little to no hope that mass vaccination was ever going to stop the spread of covid, and in the end it certainly didn't. the vulnerable have never had any choice but to adjust their lifestyles, and those still alive are alive because they did. those who were vulnerable that had faith in the government's approach to maintain economic spending ended up dead.
5) the science was abundantly clear that vaccination provided no benefit to the vast majority of people and was in theory only useful to help stop the spread, which it failed to do.
6) it follows that the science really never supported mandatory vaccination, except for (1) healthcare workers, (2) employees at geriatric facilities and (3) people entering geriatric facilities to visit relatives. there was no discernible benefit in forcing vaccination to cross borders, to enter sports or cultural events, etc and it should have never been considered. rather, the government policy should have been to strongly advise that anybody vulnerable to the illness stay at home and just not go to the hockey game or the concert at all, while normal, healthy people should have been encouraged to carry on normally, and avoid economic or social disruption.
broadly speaking, the state made a decision to try to force the young, healthy people to bend over backwards for the old and vulnerable out of holding to an ideological position, and the science never supported anything they tried to force down on normal people for the benefit of the sick. if the science made sense, i probably would have supported much of this, in principle, but the policies were always about the economy and were frequently drafted by ignoring the science to try to help the economy. the policy should have always been the opposite of what they did: they should have tried to minimize economic and social disruption to the majority by letting the virus go, and instead placed immense restrictions on the vulnerable in it's care and made extreme recommendations to those over 55 to avoid any contact with anybody at all. that's what the science actually said.
i always supported upholding science. i was highly critical of the state's policy because it didn't uphold the science. and i often found myself arguing that the libertarian position was more in line with the science than the government's position, because that's what the science actually said - avoid restricting the behaviour of healthy, young people and instead place extremely severe restrictions on face to face access with the old and otherwise vulnerable and make strong recommendations that those 55-75 just try not to go out for any reason at all.
those who were and remain vulnerable and are still alive are still alive because they listened to the science and aggressively minimized all contact with others as much as possible. those who blindly listened to the state and confidently went to the store or the show in their useless cloth masks and with their ineffective vaccines as protection to spend, spend, spend just ended up dead. healthy young people were forced to endure incredible hardships for no benefit to try to enforce that consumer confidence.