If people had listened to the scientists earlier, instead of ignoring them, the lockdowns wouldn't have been necessary. Simple precautions such as testing at airports and ports, quarantine measures, efficient contarct-tracing, remote working, mask-wearing and social distancing should have been universal since 2003. Nobody listened then, and even now, people only want to get back to 'normal', as if Covid-19 were the last and only global pandemic, rather than the first of many.

But that would have entailed ordinary people considering a future different from the present. A bit too much for their tiny minds.