COVID-19 has suddenly made much of the western public health establishment effectively redundant. Unused to dealing with infectious disease, we have a legion of epidemiologists who have never studied an epidemic and a horde of public health professionals who are more comfortable discussing soda taxes than virology.
If you’ve spent your career believing that drinking, smoking and obesity are the real epidemics, a potentially fatal virus forcing billions of people into hiding could make you question your priorities. But if the nanny state lobby was disoriented at first, it has quickly learnt to adapt. The public are temporarily willing to sacrifice a bit of liberty for safety and the lifestyle regulators sense fresh opportunities.
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