It sounds like you’re laying the groundwork for a eminent domain wrongly used lawsuit saying the government did wrongly taking it so just compensates for what it took
Pretty much what I am saying. They shut down a lot of businesses. Even Nancy Pelosi’s hair salon. That was a taking. It wasn’t per se “eminent domain” but a taking nevertheless. The business owners had a lot invested in the enterprise and depended on the income they generated. The government didn’t have to shut them down. It was a virus. It killed maybe the same amount of people a flu virus does - though in my estimation probably less (the number of reported cases is lower than the real number (due to cases that went unreported) and the deaths overstated (due to listing covid even when the death was obviously not due to the virus)). The government wildly exaggerated the risks. I will grant that in the first 60-90 days little was known but by day 90 or so it was pretty clear that while yes, almost anyone could succumb to it, it was mostly those who were already in a fragile state. There was no reason for 18 months of shutdowns and/or limited service. And of course they let all the major corporations continue to operate as normal they just crushed all the little businesses. There was absolutely no way to control the virus or quarantine it despite every mitigation strategy they employed; and you could catch it at Home Depot or Kroger just as easily as you could at Pelosi’s hair salon (probably less likely in the salon due to strict sanitization rules and easier to control social distancing rules).
I have my own thoughts on the motives for the extremely exaggerated response to the virus but the motive doesn’t matter. It was a taking. The thing is it wasn’t a federal taking it was mostly at the state and local level.