When the global pandemic was in its early stages in early 2020, very little was known, and our leaders feared the worst. Some understood, knowing the Chinese communist party's response to SARS1, that the regime would avoid culpability at all costs, indeed at just about ANY cost, with possibly devastating consequences. Others, facing dubious models touting millions of deaths being brandished about by supposedly eminent scientists, and with the "extreme safety" being demanded by some elements of Western societies, were likewise in a panic. Fear gripped Western societies in a way unseen in generations.