In his latest City Journal column, our favorite doctor optimistically sees the end of the Covid lockdowns and, perhaps surprisingly, finds some compensation from the often severe government restrictions that have been widely imposed throughout the pandemic.

The atmosphere was redolent of a gentler age: poorer in possessions and panoply of amusements, but less frantic. People (including me) took time and delight in feeding the ducks and geese on the riverbank, and even watching the blackbirds hunt for worms under the grass. And was it that the birds sang more, or was it that we noticed them now?