For years, we were told to obey the science, and seek the facts. Well, the facts are in. No dispute. Mortality from Covid was .25 percent of the global population. The 1919 Spanish Flu epidemic killed between 2.5 and 5 per cent. It is an order of magnitude smaller. The same ratio of 10:1 applies to the infection fatality rate. In fact, for a 40 year old, it had the same Infection Fatality Rate as the now forgotten Hong Kong Flu of 1968. Factually, we can now see that Covid was serious, but not catastrophic. So why have those who spoke out in the early days of the pandemic to urge proportionality, remained on the wrong side of history? In recent weeks, a UK national inquiry into the pandemic reached the second stage of its conclusions. Their findings? That Britain should have locked down harder, earlier. The inquiry’s chair, Baroness Heather Hallett, even put a number to this claim: locking down a week earlier, she said, would have saved 23 000 lives. Yet for Daniel Hannan and the small band of Covid-impact skeptics like him, who opposed lockdowns from the off, the right side of history continues to elude them. Five years ago, there must have been a sense that they only had to wait for the data: that validation would arrive by now. Sadly, the inquiry has only been a turgid, expensive means to amplify the old narrative. Its general quality poses broader questions: what is it to inquire, at a national, statutory level? How can we drill down to truth, when so many establishment interests stand in the way? Do we still have an elite class capable of putting aside their priors? Daniel Hannan now sits in the House of Lords, as Lord Hannan of Kingsclere. He has continued to be a thorn in the side of British bureaucracy, and to speak out on the Covid response. In this episode of Danube Politics, he talks to Visiting Fellow Gavin Haynes about Covid, inquiries, and the things we have forgotten to remember.

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