There was Plexiglas, six feet of distance, mass use of sanitizer, one-way grocery aisles, the HEPA filter racket, the belief in stay-at-home orders, the reopening hoax, and so much more, so many we cannot possibly remember them or list them. In this search, we don't even have to examine the preposterous exaggerations about the vaccine; there are enough otherwise to make the point. 

So much we've already forgotten, which is one reason to be grateful for David Zweig's Abundance of Caution. It carefully chronicles the excuses for not opening schools from the beginning, almost day by day, and explodes every myth along the way. Even though I consider myself pretty aware of what they did, there are pieces of this crazy puzzle I had missed.