By Daniel Nardini
For me, the pandemic really began when in April of 2020 I contracted the corona virus in April of 2020. I had it for about two weeks and then I slowly over-came it. I had no real after-effects from this, and since then I NEVER contracted Covid again. From April to June of that year I saw things go really crazy. I saw people panic-buy things like potatoes, toilet paper, paper towels, milk, hand sanitizer, and eggs. These items were not only off the shelves but manufacturers could not produce anything fast enough to restock the stores. The worst was yet to come. Unlike most people, my wife and I refused to stay indoors and “shelter in place.” We went where we wanted to, stayed outdoors as long as we wanted, and did NOT care if we got the virus again or not, and we went shopping when we wished. The problem was being able to shop because so many stores were shut down. My wife and I went through a landscape of closed shops, closed state and federal government offices, and deserted streets. It seemed almost like I was living in a dead city. In many ways it was a dead city.
The worst part for me was being “forced” to wear masks indoors and “practice distancing” which I found ludicrous to put it mildly. Viruses can travel great distances, and no amount of sterilization can entirely stop this. But I saw the fear in peoples’ eyes of a virus they were misinformed about, and feared even shaking hands or even giving hugs to family and friends. It saddened me that the state government told people to not congregate in groups, wear face masks even outside, and used the state police to threaten people who did not “follow the rules.” This was insane government over-reach at its worst. Hospital rules were that much more nuts. When I had to go for health check-ups, I had to not only wear a face-mask but keep my distance, and be touched by people almost wearing a space suit as if they were protecting themselves from the Bubonic Plague.
The year 2021 was about the same. The mask mandates continued, and the state of Illinois government punished whole businesses and establishments for “not complying with quarantine mandates.” Business owners were fined, and some even jailed. One person I knew well told me that his brother-in-law’s business was being threatened with fines and himself with jail if he did not “comply” with the health regulations being instituted by the Illinois government. The problem was that the laws were contradictory and doing this would have bankrupted him. So he chose the “evil” thing of keeping his business open and incur the wrath of the governor. Despite him “breaking the law” he was able to keep his business open and save it despite the threats. But I ask myself how many businesses did not survive the over-reach of the Illinois government? Businesses were gradually being slowly re-opened, but after spending all kinds of money for “complying” with the arbitrary laws of the time.
Going from 2021 to 2022, I only saw more of the same non-sense where coercion and arbitrary rules reigned. And then the vaccines came out, and people were told to “get vaccinated” or else they could not return to “normal society.” The only reason I bothered to get vaccinated at all was that I treated the vaccine for Covid the same as I would have gotten a shot for the flu. I saw it as no cure and certainly as no real fix to a political problem of over-reach. Two weeks after I got the stupid vaccine, I no longer used my mask for anything. Yes, some people got angry at me and yelled at me to put on a mask. I said no and dared them to call the police. Afterwards I got no more threats. As far as I was concerned the whole plague was over for me. The mask mandates and other arbitrary measures continued into early 2023.
Worse, the U.S. government under U.S. President Joe Biden tried to threaten federal action against any and all small businesses with not only even more stronger mask mandates, but with coercing employees getting the vaccine or their companies would be heavily fined and even put out of business. It was when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all of this was unconstitutional and the Democrats were up for reelection that the mandates and the arbitrary rules finally ended. Truth be told, the Covid pandemic in my view really ended in 2022, but the mandates and arbitrary rules lasted well after the plague because the politicians had carried this over-reach long after the whole plague was already ended. From my point of view, too many people especially in the healthcare profession were still too paranoid about the pandemic when everyone else had had enough. The last visit I had had at a hospital in early 2023 did not go well. When I had explained that I had both Covid and meningitis and that meningitis was truly way more deadly than Covid could ever be, the nurse yelled at me “Covid is deadly too!” For those who want to calmly examine the medical facts, meningitis is WAY MORE deadly. Covid does not even come close.
Let us just say after what I saw experienced at how the so-called medical experts handled the whole pandemic in the United States, I most probably will NEVER trust them again. In my view this was one of the reasons why the Democrats not only lost the 2024 presidential election and have ended up in the political wilderness, but had done a great deal of economic damage and social dislocation to this country that it is still trying to recover from. The Covid pandemic was a disaster for the United States which the medical establishment and the Democratic Party have still not studied and learned their lessons about what they should not do. To this day no one has been held accountable for the disastrous policies they promulgated, nor the businesses and lives that were ruined during the time period. In my view, it is like the economic meltdown and Great Recession started under U.S. President George W. Bush—no one was ever held accountable and the disastrous lessons from that time period have never been learned.
I can only hope that we see nothing even remotely like what happened in 2020 ever happen again anytime soon. While the Covid pandemic happened under U.S. President Donald Trump, it was in my view the Democrats under U.S. President Joe Biden that committed the worst of the disastrous polices which made a bad situation WORSE. How can I ever trust the Democratic Party again with dealing with a medical emergency like Covid? I cannot. The Covid pandemic happened five years ago, and I have not forgotten what that was like. I have no kind words for those who made my life harder than it should have ever been, and it still makes me question why all of the things that happened needed to happen. Personally speaking, I do not think as a nation we have learned how to handle such phenomena all that well anymore than we knew how to handle the Great Influenza pandemic of 1918 to 1920. History has simply repeated itself, and I fear it will repeat itself again.
My Experience of the Great Covid Pandemic of 2020 to 2022
By Daniel Nardini
The worst part for me was being “forced” to wear masks indoors and “practice distancing” which I found ludicrous to put it mildly. Viruses can travel great distances, and no amount of sterilization can entirely stop this. But I saw the fear in peoples’ eyes of a virus they were misinformed about, and feared even shaking hands or even giving hugs to family and friends. It saddened me that the state government told people to not congregate in groups, wear face masks even outside, and used the state police to threaten people who did not “follow the rules.” This was insane government over-reach at its worst. Hospital rules were that much more nuts. When I had to go for health check-ups, I had to not only wear a face-mask but keep my distance, and be touched by people almost wearing a space suit as if they were protecting themselves from the Bubonic Plague.
The year 2021 was about the same. The mask mandates continued, and the state of Illinois government punished whole businesses and establishments for “not complying with quarantine mandates.” Business owners were fined, and some even jailed. One person I knew well told me that his brother-in-law’s business was being threatened with fines and himself with jail if he did not “comply” with the health regulations being instituted by the Illinois government. The problem was that the laws were contradictory and doing this would have bankrupted him. So he chose the “evil” thing of keeping his business open and incur the wrath of the governor. Despite him “breaking the law” he was able to keep his business open and save it despite the threats. But I ask myself how many businesses did not survive the over-reach of the Illinois government? Businesses were gradually being slowly re-opened, but after spending all kinds of money for “complying” with the arbitrary laws of the time.
Going from 2021 to 2022, I only saw more of the same non-sense where coercion and arbitrary rules reigned. And then the vaccines came out, and people were told to “get vaccinated” or else they could not return to “normal society.” The only reason I bothered to get vaccinated at all was that I treated the vaccine for Covid the same as I would have gotten a shot for the flu. I saw it as no cure and certainly as no real fix to a political problem of over-reach. Two weeks after I got the stupid vaccine, I no longer used my mask for anything. Yes, some people got angry at me and yelled at me to put on a mask. I said no and dared them to call the police. Afterwards I got no more threats. As far as I was concerned the whole plague was over for me. The mask mandates and other arbitrary measures continued into early 2023.
Worse, the U.S. government under U.S. President Joe Biden tried to threaten federal action against any and all small businesses with not only even more stronger mask mandates, but with coercing employees getting the vaccine or their companies would be heavily fined and even put out of business. It was when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all of this was unconstitutional and the Democrats were up for reelection that the mandates and the arbitrary rules finally ended. Truth be told, the Covid pandemic in my view really ended in 2022, but the mandates and arbitrary rules lasted well after the plague because the politicians had carried this over-reach long after the whole plague was already ended. From my point of view, too many people especially in the healthcare profession were still too paranoid about the pandemic when everyone else had had enough. The last visit I had had at a hospital in early 2023 did not go well. When I had explained that I had both Covid and meningitis and that meningitis was truly way more deadly than Covid could ever be, the nurse yelled at me “Covid is deadly too!” For those who want to calmly examine the medical facts, meningitis is WAY MORE deadly. Covid does not even come close.
Let us just say after what I saw experienced at how the so-called medical experts handled the whole pandemic in the United States, I most probably will NEVER trust them again. In my view this was one of the reasons why the Democrats not only lost the 2024 presidential election and have ended up in the political wilderness, but had done a great deal of economic damage and social dislocation to this country that it is still trying to recover from. The Covid pandemic was a disaster for the United States which the medical establishment and the Democratic Party have still not studied and learned their lessons about what they should not do. To this day no one has been held accountable for the disastrous policies they promulgated, nor the businesses and lives that were ruined during the time period. In my view, it is like the economic meltdown and Great Recession started under U.S. President George W. Bush—no one was ever held accountable and the disastrous lessons from that time period have never been learned.
I can only hope that we see nothing even remotely like what happened in 2020 ever happen again anytime soon. While the Covid pandemic happened under U.S. President Donald Trump, it was in my view the Democrats under U.S. President Joe Biden that committed the worst of the disastrous polices which made a bad situation WORSE. How can I ever trust the Democratic Party again with dealing with a medical emergency like Covid? I cannot. The Covid pandemic happened five years ago, and I have not forgotten what that was like. I have no kind words for those who made my life harder than it should have ever been, and it still makes me question why all of the things that happened needed to happen. Personally speaking, I do not think as a nation we have learned how to handle such phenomena all that well anymore than we knew how to handle the Great Influenza pandemic of 1918 to 1920. History has simply repeated itself, and I fear it will repeat itself again.