Lockdown year and what a long strange trip it’s been. Can we get off this ride now? Evidently some states don’t want us to walk the land freely. Instead, teachers unions want virtual school to continue indefinitely while Oregon is considering a permanent, ‘until we say otherwise because reasons,’ mask mandate.

Here’s a run-down of just SOME of the bad, the good, and the very ugly things that took place during the Fifteen Days To Slow The Curve Lockdown Year. 

The Bad: 

Kids and young adults who are NOT major vectors of the Covid flu were quarantined and isolated, which has now led to a horrific rise in mental health issues, suicides, and educational decline.

Small businesses, especially restaurants have been irreparably harmed by these lockdowns. Those businesses that have survived need more than a year to recover, need the lockdowns completely lifted, and Democrat governors to get out of their way. It isn’t just Tinhorn Flats, or Pineapple Alley. It is Marlena’s Pizzaria in Holland, Michigan. Marlena is now in jail because of her refusal to bow down to Gretchen Whitmer’s mandates. Marlena exercised common sense in her fight to keep her business open, Whitmer doesn’t care and has had a woman who escaped Communism in Poland to become an American citizen, thrown in jail. 

There was the great Toilet Paper/Paper Towel run starting a year ago this week. There was a run on canned goods, pastas, rice, milk, eggs and essentially everything except gluten free stuff. 

Mask mandates started happening even as Fauci tap danced around the idea that we didn’t need masks, but now he says double-mask indefinitely. 

We were treated to videos throughout the summer and fall of dancing nurses and doctors while the media screamed that we are all going to die from the Covid flu.

The media and our political betters informed us that everything President Trump said or did was wrong and went into massive on-air snit fits over testing, whether we can say Wuhan flu, blame China/but don’t blame China, bleach, and so much more. 

Our political betters told us to “do as we mandate, not as we do” and blamed everyone and the kitchen sink for their $12 a pint ice cream, dining at the French Laundry, demanding they get preferential treatment at the boat dock, voting from a boat on the ocean, and not wearing a mask while demanding a hair salon open against regulations. Oh, and don’t let me forget Dr. Birx and her holiday excursion plus one of the other Covid “experts” Dr. Ding who is commuting from Austria so his kids can attend school in person. 

The bad is also asinine given California has decreed that screaming through your masks on that crazy roller coaster is verboten. 

The Very Ugly:

The lockdowns and the vaccine messaging.

Our elderly and children forced to isolate while big box stores and grocery stores remain open.

People not allowed to see loved ones in the hospital, leaving far too many to die alone. 

Women giving birth in isolation. 

Too many critical surgeries, biopsies, and disease treatments deferred because of Covid

Cuomo’s nursing home edict that contributed to over 15,000 unnecessary deaths.

Churches shut down.

Cuomo’s mandate that sends Covid patients into homes for the disabled. 

Democrat governors hiding the numbers with the CDC’s assistance. 

Our cities imploding because of BLM and Antifa riots, while our political betters give them a Covid pass, yet are swift to Covid shame businesses struggling to survive.

The mask Karens who showed up in force.

The teachers unions.

The Very Ugly is also this:

“It might not occur to you, because you are not a bizarre wierdo, but a lot of people really love the pandemic. Not just the little fascist gnome who changes his #science advice more often than a Wellesley girl changes her preferences during her sophomore year experimental phase, and not just the fascist pols who get off on exploiting their emergency powers to boss people around, but even some regular people. The masks, the paranoia, the constant talk about vaccines – some people love this stuff.

This is their Woodstock.

And they never want it to end.”

Indeed, they don’t want this to end. They don’t want a return to common sense and LIVING without fear. They want this lockdown to continue because reasons and because they’ve had too much fun becoming the Covid Karen Lecture Police. Fauci, with his bobblehead and children’s book is their new idol. 

Mask up, America. pic.twitter.com/6yaUHYmzWC

— President Biden (@POTUS) March 21, 2021

Two people who’ve been fully vaccinated for two+ months now, wearing masks for no reason other than to continue the Covid fear-mongering.

Yes, there is a great deal of bad and VERY UGLY that showed up in this Fifteen Day Pandemic Lockdown Year. However, there was also an amazing amount of GOOD. 

Everyone who works in the grocery and big box stores.

All the truckers who kept goods and services moving throughout the country.

The Distilleries who pivoted to making hand sanitizer.

The seamstresses and quilters who quickly started making thousands of masks for their communities. 

The local restaurants who managed against all odds to stay open via utilizing take-out, delivery, and loans. 

President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed that landed us with three vaccines with a fourth one on the horizon.

The entire country doing their own 4th of July fireworks shows after politicians caved to Covid and canceled the shows, with the exception of Mount Rushmore. 

Our farmers and ranchers continuing to work and raise the food we all eat. 

The GOOD teachers who bent over backwards for their students. 

The scientists, the doctors, nurses, and those who work in senior care/nursing home facilities who have done their very best this last year. 

This lockdown year has been one for the books. It’s been a year of political missteps on numerous fronts. Democrats have shown their true colors while the media has run full-tilt with Covid fear porn. Yet through it all, while there has been bad and very ugly, there’s also been resilience, joy, and laughter. 

Remember the bad. Remember the Very Ugly and provide consequences. Celebrate the good that we did see from this Lockdown Year. 

Welcome Instapundit Readers!

Feature Photo Credit: restaurant Covid by Queven via Pixabay, cropped and modified