Good Riddance, 2021

Making Sense by Michael Reagan

It’s New Year’s again and time to hope for a happier future.

Last year at this time we were hoping for a better year in 2021, but that sure as heck didn’t work out, did it?

Forget the damage done to the economy by the hapless and relentlessly clueless “Joe Biden” regime.

Forget the Biden-made disasters at the Mexican border and in Afghanistan.

The worst mistakes the Biden administration made were in its failed “War on COVID.”

Biden, Dr. Fauci, the blue state governors, the CDC and the government’s so-called public health experts were wrong about everything – the high cost of lockdowns, the efficacy and safety of vaccines, the protection provided by cloth masks, the benefits of social distancing, boosters, mask mandates, vaccine mandates….

What’s left?

Whatever it is, if it had anything to do with fighting the virus in 2021, the Biden administration and its panic-pushing cheerleaders in the mainstream liberal media got it wrong.

Whether you’re masked or unmasked, vaxxed or un-vaxxed, or holed up 24/7 in your basement, COVID or one of its variants is eventually going to get you.

I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do to stay safe. I wear a mask when told. I’ve been vaccinated. I’ll get my first booster next month.

But after two years of following the strict and ever-changing rules, I look around and see most public places in Los Angeles closing down again because of omicron, a variant that is more transmissible but not nearly as dangerous as the original strain of COVID-19.

I also see long lines of people waiting to get a COVID test. I think to myself, they don’t look sick.

If you’re slightly sick, if you’ve got the sniffles and a cough and a little temperature, do you really need to get tested immediately for COVID - and possibly infect other people with whatever you have while you stand in line?

Shouldn’t you just stay home and take some therapeutics until you see whether it’s really COVID, the flu or, more likely, just one of about 200 cold viruses out there we can catch?

I’m no Dr. Fauci, but I do know a lot of people have lost their minds during our government's losing battle against COVID.

The other day I was having lunch with my daughter in a restaurant and when they sat us down, a mother and her grown-up son at the table next to us just about had a heart attack.

We were wearing our masks. But they called over the manager and said, “We have to move. We’re too close!”

The son nodded to me as he left, signaling "My mother’s crazy. Don’t worry about her.”

But then the table next to them also moved away. Pretty soon there wasn’t a table within 20 yards of us.

If that older woman was that paranoid – and clueless – about catching COVID in a restaurant, why was she even out of her house?

Likewise, if you’re that terrified of getting COVID on an airplane, why are you even on a plane? Get in your car and drive to where you're going– or stay home.

In 2021 we learned many important lessons about what works and doesn’t work in the failed war against COVID.

As we enter 2022 filled with the hope that we've learned from our mistakes, we’ve recently discovered that COVID vaccines – originally touted (and pushed) by Biden, Dr. Fauci and the panic media as the magic medical bullets that would save us all – don’t actually protect you from catching the virus. Sometimes catching it twice.

At best, it appears the vaccines and their boosters only stop you from getting deathly ill.

In two years more than 800,000 Americans have died of or with COVID. We can safely predict that no matter what we do thousands of additional COVID-related deaths are coming in 2022.

So be careful. Stay safe. Don’t let the frightened people run or ruin your life. And have yourself a happy New Year – if they let us.

Michael Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, is an author, speaker and president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation. Send comments to reagan@caglecartoons.com and follow @reaganworld on Twitter.