It is a grim milestone, as state-run media used to say.

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the insane order by then-Gov. Charlie Baker to shut down the schools, prohibit gatherings of more than 25 people and close all restaurants in Massachusetts except for take outs or deliveries.

Eight days later, every “non-essential” business in the state was shut down.

On May 1, Dear Leader Baker ordered all comrades to wear face masks in public.

Pointless, totally pointless, not to mention profoundly destructive. The worst public-health folly in American history, a total overreaction, one that the society will need generations to recover from.

I asked my radio listeners this week to reminisce about some of COVID’s Greatest Hits.

Do you remember the COVID snitch lines, to rat out your neighbor who wasn’t worried because he could… read charts, and understand statistics?

How about the COVID death counter at the bottom of the cable TV screens, all of which were eliminated as soon as Dementia Joe Biden was installed as president in January 2021.

On weeknights, the COVID curfew went into effect at 10. But on weekends, you could stay out until 11, because the Red Chinese virus wanted to give you a break on date nights.

Fourteen days to flatten the curve.

The apparatchiks changed the dictionary definition of “natural immunity,” so Big Pharma could pocket tens of billions.

No haircuts or manicures for you, but sneaky appointments at the beauty parlor for Nancy Pelosi and Lori Lightfoot.

The nomenklatura likewise looked the other way for a maskless Barack Obama birthday party for hundreds of Beautiful People on Martha’s Vineyard because his guests were, as The New York Times grovelingly reported, “sophisticated.”

This was the moment when millions of people stopped watching their local TV news. They cut the cord for their cable TV and canceled their newspaper subscriptions, because why bother? The media stopped reporting news.

It was all COVID agitprop, all the time.

Recall Charlie Baker’s noon press conferences, surrounded by non-doctors wearing white coats (stethoscopes optional), sternly ordering “the folks” to follow his latest lunatic diktats.

Every afternoon came the breathless reports from the MWRA on COVID particles in the wastewater, i.e., sewage, reported as “breaking news.”

Remember the hundreds of billions of dollars stolen in fraudulent COVID welfare, and not just by Democrats and illegal aliens – am I right, ex-GOP state Sen. Dean Tran?

One of my texters from the 617 area code recalled: “Lost my job. They closed my church. Closed my kids’ schools. Spied on us at Thanksgiving. Pulled over in RI because I had out-of-state plates.”

From 781: “Davis Square Somerville big theater sign out front: ‘Vaccinated Only.’”

From 603: “I will never forget nor forgive Baker, Fauci, Wallensky et al. for forcing my dear father to die alone in the BI. To my undying shame I didn’t go to jail that day.”

From 781: “All my AA meetings shut down, but if I wanted to I could still go to a bar or packy. Trust the science!”

From 508: “I heard on the radio that the widow of John Glenn had been struck down by COVID. She was 100 years old.”

Suddenly, everybody with a job was either “essential” or “non-essential.” Government workers were all pretty much “non-essential,” and they were damned happy about it. They stopped going to work, and a lot of them have never gone back.

But five years into their endless vacations, they’re still getting paid. Or were, until Elon Musk.

Public-school teachers thundered that they couldn’t go back to their classrooms, ever, because it would be deadly… for the children. Although of course no children were dying, none.

Then after their “remote learning” vacations started, fat teachers began posting photos of themselves on social media partying in pools in the Caribbean, gulping frosty drinks with little umbrellas in them.

And then some of those same public employees who hadn’t worked for months, or years, got “bonuses” for their heroic COVID goldbricking. Except for the public-safety workers who were actually expected to work through the Panic, but then got fired for not getting the vaccine.

Now, the same federal hacks who celebrated being “non-essential” for all these years are getting laid off, and they’re whining that their firings will decimate the Republic.

As one of listeners asked:

“Would the Democrats be okay w/DOGE cuts if they knew the workers’ vaccination status?”

And now, a few flashbacks from Dementia Joe Biden:

Flashback 1: “A fully vaccinated booster person is the most protected against COVID.”

Flashback 2: “Visit vaccines dot gum dot gov vaccines dot gum or text to your text your zip code to 438829….”

Flashback 3: “Listen to Dr. Fauci, Dr. Fauci assured that COVID-9 vac-tines, vaccines were safe.”

Flashback 4: “On vaccines alone, we – if we don’t invest 20 million billions to vaccinate the nation, doesn’t that make sense?”

Until 2020, it was always against the law to drive with an “open container” of alcohol in your car. Overnight, local restaurants could sell, along with their takeout food, “open containers” of alcohol.

Likewise, banks had signs, often bolted to the walls just inside their entrances, warning that it was against federal law to wear a mask into a financial institution.

Yet suddenly the same banks had paper signs, often hand-lettered, taped to their front doors, announcing that no customer could enter the bank unless he was wearing… a mask.

They took the hoops down off basketball goals. They shut down beaches. They shut down clam flats. They blocked entrances to public parks with concrete blocks.

After a while, you were permitted to play golf, well, sort of. You and the rest of your foursome could drive together to the course in one car. But once you got to the greens and were outside, everyone in the party had to have his own golf cart because… science.

And you could enjoy a soft drink in the cart, but no beer because, repeat after me, science.

Headline from 2021: “Psaki: White House ‘Flagging’ COVID ‘Disinformation’ for Social Media Censors.”

And now it turns out that all that disinformation – that the virus came out of a Red Chinese lab, that vaccines didn’t necessarily protect you, that healthy young people weren’t at risk, etc. – was pretty much true.

And that everything the “experts” said was pernicious BS.

It was the return of the old Soviet Union as described by novelist Elena Gorokhova:

“The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us and we keep pretending to believe them.”

It’s five years since the Deep State began oppressing us with the Biggest Lie in American history.

It’s a grim milestone. Never forget.