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People in power created the lockdown policies, and told their subjects they were necessary because of a uniquely threatening contagion which everyone needed to avoid until vaccines could be distributed. They then carried on with their own lives as normal, indicating no fear of the virus on their own part whatsoever. Doesn't that suggest the rationale for the lockdowns was a pretense from the start?

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Although, Boris Johnson, whose misdemeanors Doctorow somewhat misrepresents, nearly died of COVID—he was hospitalized and on a ventilator. He understood the risks.

(And, an irrelevant aside while I'm on the topic. Cummings, rat though he is, did not 'drive 275 miles to Durham to check in on his family' as Doctorow claims. He drove there to take his autistic child, who needs round-the-clock care, to his parent's house because he believed he and his wife were infected. There was no real excuse for the Barnard Castle trip though)

> Boris Johnson nearly died of COVID ... He understood the risks.

The second does not follow from the first. Some people don't understand risks ever. Learning is optional.

What, if anything did Mr Johnson learn from having COVID in office? What did Mr Trump?

I suspect a) nothing and b) less than nothing.

I could be wrong, but the opposite, that "he must have learned" does not follow.

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