Four years on, what has COVID taught?

It's been fully four years since the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic began to be felt worldwide. Many recall March 11, 2020 as one of those red-letter days that will live forever — in infamy, certainly, but also as a milestone in knowledge about world health.

We'd heard there was a bug going around. But on that day, the NBA canceled the remainder of its season. Whoa! No basketball? Not to mention Hollywood's Everyman, Tom Hanks, announcing that day while on location in Australia that he'd contracted the coronavirus. If Tom Hanks can get it, anyone can. What have you, and what have we as a society, learned from the pandemic over these four years?

That's our Question of the Week for readers. Were government health agencies sufficiently nimble enough to respond in a timely manner to the threat of the potentially deadly virus's spread?

Does the division of responsibility from global entities such as the World Health Organization down to national, state, county and city health departments in this country work well? Did they coordinate and act swiftly enough? Or if they had acted sooner, could we have stopped the disease's spread?

In particular, did California's stay-at-home order announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom on March 19 of that year come quickly enough?

Or perhaps it came too quickly — do you think the socalled lockdowns were more counter-productive to overall social well-being than helpful? Were the economic consequences too severe? Did closing down public schools come at too high a price for our children's education?

Were you impressed by the public-private partnership that led to swift creation of COVID vaccines? Was then-President Donald Trump's mixed message on vaccines — pushing for their creation, but not for universal vaccination — a missed opportunity to knock down the spread early?

What's your call: Was COVID-19 created in a lab, and accidentally released? Or were those Wuhan wet markets responsible? Were you vaccinated? Did you get COVID anyway? Do you still think they helped?

Email your thoughts to opinion@scng.com. Please include your full name and city or community of residence. Provide a daytime phone number (it will not be published).