John Tamny

In March of 2020, the coronavirus quickly became a major news item as political panic about it traveled around the world. Even though evidence from the virus’s epicenter indicated very low lethality, politicians quickly imposed economy-crushing lockdowns on the rather specious assumption that unemployment, bankruptcy, and starvation would somehow halt the virus’s spread.

In When Politicians Panicked, JohnTamny dismantles the political consensus by showing how economic growth has long been the first and last answer to death and disease, and how politicians, having mindlessly crushed a growing economy, proceeded to double down on their mistakes by throwing taxpayer money at their shocking errors.

Lockdowns suffocate economic progress, but they also blind us to how we can progress—as Tamny makes plain in what will go down as an essential history for anyone seeking to understand the coronavirus panic of 2020.