This was a good interview with epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina of "Your Local Epidemiologist" fame discussing pandemic revisionism and imperfect hindsight.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/29/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-katelyn-jetelina.html

I share her fear that we may get stuck into certain mindsets for the next inevitable pandemic. For example, for many viruses children are more vulnerable than adults. Likewise while fomite transmission isn't significant for the coronavirus, for other viruses it can be a major vector of transmission.

And we really haven't had a sound post-mortem on the pandemic. With SARS/MERS, countries like South Korea and Vietnam took a sober look at their failures and revamped their public health infrastructure. These reforms were a significant part of their success with SARS-COV-2 years later. But in the US, we are relitigating old debates.