The most obvious one, which you already admitted to in your original post, is the lab leak theory. They knew it was a very likely possibility, and lied. And dissenting opinions were labelled conspiracies, censored, deboosted, demonetized, the usual.

The masks are the funniest one, because it's double dumb. When they thought they worked, they told us they didn't work, and after we knew they don't do much they still mandated masks.

Or how about ivermectin being called a "horse dewormer" so that people didn't use it? If you think that's not lying or censoring because it can indeed be used to treat horses, I don't know what else to tell you.

As for policy that failed, how about the lockdowns? You may argue that it's because they didn't go far enough, like in China or New Zealand (where they also failed, as excess deaths are through the roof anyway) but it would still make it a failed policy, failure of implementation is still failure.

I'm not going to give you any sources, you can Google them on the spot as well as I can, and it seems like you need an out here.

This goes back to my original point. Policies have to also account for geopolitical tensions.

You're at the beginning of a Pandemic, China just released the genetic material for the virus. You're hoping they collaborate with you to exchange more info about it and help fight it off. You're hoping not to hurt our trade with them, and other such things.

It could be a lab leak, it could be a natural origin.

China says it's not a lab leak, do you come out gun blazing and accuse them of hiding things and that they're responsible for COVID?

Even though, it's not like you have proof it's a lab leak either.

Or do you focus more on mitigation, containment, developing a better understanding of the virus, finding ways to fight it off. And leave actually figuring out if it was a leak or not and if there are responsible parties to later?

I know your opinion is that you'd have accused China right then and there. And maybe it would have led to better outcomes, maybe not.

My point is that this whole consideration is not part of the normal scientific inquiry, but something that policy making has to contend with.

Now for masks, I mean they know they work when using real PPEs worn properly. There was a shortage. Again, it's a policy thing. Your medical staff needs PPEs, not even just for COVID, they need them for other pre-covid diseases too.

Later, it was maybe a toss up. Individually it works, but collectively it's unclear, because it also encourages more social proximity, and how many people will wear crappy masks or wear them badly, take them off when they talk, etc.

With Ivermectin, initially, you'd get things like this:

> An adult drank an injectable ivermectin formulation intended for use in cattle in an attempt to prevent COVID-19 infection. This patient presented to a hospital with confusion, drowsiness, visual hallucinations, tachypnea, and tremors. The patient recovered after being hospitalized for nine days.

Again, from a policy point of view. When you see things like that. You might think. Ok, hold on. It's not currently approved for COVID, we're still figuring out if it works. Then we're still working the guidance for when to prescribe it for COVID, how much to use, etc. In the meantime, we don't want more of these kind of situations where people think it's a miracle cure, so maybe let's tone down the hopes around it.

I don't know if Lockdown is a failure either. With policy, again, you have to compare against alternatives, not like the outcome. Could there have been better policies that would have had better outcomes. A end COVID with zero death Policy most likely didn't exist. It clearly slowed down the spread, which gave the medical system breathing room. It clearly did something for me, since I didn't get sick at all during that time, not even a cold. Did it make everyone depressed, affected the economy, it did as well. I don't feel it's really clear if not having them would have been overall better or worse. You can have an opinion, but I doubt you have clear evidence one way or another.

Let me end with, there also likely has been some corruption, some self interest, and what not. And I think we should continue with investigations, like how Biden opened up a bunch of investigation into figuring out the origin of COVID. And we should have retrospectives on the effectiveness of the policies chosen so we're able to make better policies next time and be better prepared. It does seem there was maybe some overreach in some instances on what was being censored, maybe too broad strokes were taken.

I agree with all that. But had I been in charge of the policies, I'd have had to contend with all these considerations and also am not sure what I would have done better.

You don't know that.

"Don't lie" and "don't censor your own citizens calling you out on your lies" mean exactly what it says in the tin.

I didn't say "call Xi and tell him it's the lab!" I say don't force trusted institutions to lie for you, and if somebody posts a dissenting opinion on Facebook, you let them, or deal with the consequences (lack of trust in institutions for a few generations).

Now I'm confused what you're referring too. If we don't want to have them stir up the possibility of China having had a lab leak they're hiding, your institutions kind of have to keep quiet on that front no?

> if somebody posts a dissenting opinion on Facebook, you let them, or deal with the consequences

Has this actually been shown to have occurred without a doubt? That official government had content censored on social media? I have not seen definitive proof of this, but I'm open to the possibility, so asking if I missed something.

What I'm aware of is that some institutions did reach out to social media platforms to encourage them to limit misinformation and sometimes provided links to what they thought was misinformation or foreign interference.

But they did not compell them to take down material that I'm aware of.

That said, I do find it an interesting debate as if even asking for certain information to be taken down or limited, even if not ordered or enforced, as in, social media companies can refuse without consequences. If that we feel is too coercive, since they might feel more pressured to not refuse given it's the government asking, even if in theory they can, and we know in practice that they sometimes have.

You want to claim no censorship happened because the TLAs with the monopoly on violence "only asked"? Ok. Cool. Still, after their shenanigans-which-are-for-sure-not-censorship, now fewer people trust science, medicine, government and media.

You claim it was the right decision in order to appease China? There was nothing to collaborate with them on, and if there was they didn't collaborate anyway, so no, I don't think it was the right decision even at the time.