As the pandemic enters its second year, Americans will continue to demand evidence to justify the severe restrictions on their liberty. Lockdowns interfere with the constitutional rights to free speech and religion and the economic liberty of owners and workers. Government leaders must persuade the public with proven facts and transparent decisions. Americans, our judges especially, should expect no less.

The COVID pandemic has been a tragedy, no doubt. But it has exposed profound issues in America that threaten the principles of freedom and order that we Americans often take for granted.

The media’s politicization of Covid has proved deadly and puts Americans’ freedoms at risk.

World-class universities are among America’s most treasured institutions. Unfortunately, several universities have recently announced their plans to shut down in response to new COVID-19 cases among students. That’s wrong: Universities should stay open, even when they see an increase in cases.

Scott Atlas is the newest member of the White House senior staff. Appointed barely a month ago, he’s undergoing a public hazing. His brief as a special adviser to President Trump, he tells me in an interview by Zoom, is to “advise the president on integrating the science and developing a policy for how we deal with the coronavirus pandemic.” Still living out of “multiple suitcases” in a Washington hotel, he was paid a mighty Beltway compliment this week when two national newspapers ran hit pieces on him.

Thank goodness that President Trump has appointed a knowledgeable, credible counterbalance to the Coronavirus Taskforce. Dr. Scott Atlas is not a bureaucrat like Dr. Anthony Fauci or Dr. Deborah Birx; he is a world-renowned scientist and physician who seems to actually study the totality of the impacts of the COVID-19 epidemic. Dr. Fauci, by contrast, has repeatedly conceded that he hasn’t considered the economic impacts and secondary public health crises of his COVID-19 advice.

The media-driven attempt to paint his views on health policy as “unscientific” is a smear.

Reviewing the performance of single-payer health systems versus the United States system. Suggesting an alternative approach that offers simplification via strategic deregulation to enhance market competition.

To stop COVID-19 dead in its tracks, many governors, mayors and superintendents are threatening to keep schools closed this fall, failing to consider the greater harm that comes from refusing to open them.

Our governmental COVID-19 mitigation policy of broad societal lockdown focuses on containing the spread of the disease at all costs, instead of “flattening the curve” and preventing hospital overcrowding. Although well-intentioned, the lockdown was imposed without consideration of its consequences beyond those directly from the pandemic.

Now is the time for the design of sound public policy — and that involves a far broader formulation than a single-minded focus on stopping COVID-19 at all costs.

Generics are often made in India, with ingredients from China. Time to diversify the supply chain.

The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.

Mediocre U.S. rankings in infant mortality and life expectancy have little to do with health-care quality.

Cost is only part of the problem. Single-payer systems create long waits and delays on new drugs.