As the nation awakes from its turkey-induced tryptophan coma, Americans remain a thankful and forgiving people. The mood and the time are right to forgive those bad decisions – but on the most recent Drill Down episode, Peter and Eric reflect on what went wrong in America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as the first step to granting forgiveness.

Take Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), for example. In February of 2020, early in the outbreak, he first urged people not to mask unless they had symptoms. Two months later, he reversed himself and issued general masking orders regardless of any symptoms. Why?