Chris Selley: Finally, a pandemic-era leader admits people deserve an inquiry after some ‘insane’ reactions

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Gavin Newsom, governor of California and a potential Democratic candidate for president, is a hard man to like if you don’t already like him. His threat to gerrymander California’s electoral districts in Democrats’ favour unless Texas backed off a plan to do the same wasn’t very adult-ish, never mind presidential.

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But Newsom did say something very interesting in a recent interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper: He criticized his own state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which he oversaw.

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“The idea that we closed beaches is insane, in hindsight,” Newsom said. And he lamented the number of school days missed, though that varied widely by district, with Los Angeles by far leading the way.

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Tapper put it to Newsom: “There needs to be, like, a 9/11 Commission on COVID.”

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Newsom agreed.

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I have been arguing for precisely that in Canada, both federally and in the provinces, ever since COVID finally came off the boil for good. What did we do right? What did we do wrong? How has this affected relationships of all kinds? More important than anything, we need to examine how it affected kids. Mounting evidence suggests “a great deal, leaving permanent scars.”

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Many Canadians will say, come on, we did so much better than the Americans in terms of deaths per capita. What more can we ask of a government, realistically? Why beat ourselves up? Why go through a long, expensive and “politicized” process? (As if the COVID restrictions weren’t political.)

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Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone, other than myself, who both (a) strongly supports an inquiry and (b) doesn’t believe all or most COVID restrictions were unnecessary or unreasonable. Mostly, we just don’t want to know. I certainly have major complaints and questions about those restrictions, especially regarding their longevity. I would like to see those addressed at an inquiry.

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And here’s an interesting thing for the “we did great, what’s to complain about?” crowd. California’s death toll was 2,846 people per million population. Even at 38th place among states, that’s worse than any Canadian province. But if provinces, especially Quebec, were to compare themselves to the U.S. states with the lowest death tolls, they might be surprised.

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At 1,784 deaths per million, Utah lost 25 per cent fewer people per capita than Quebec did. Washington, D.C. even did slightly better than Quebec.

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Among the most important, specific questions: B.C. closed schools for fewer days than any other province did. But its COVID death rate was less than Alberta’s, Saskatchewan’s, Manitoba’s and Quebec’s. What explains this?