…Undeniably, the country is in a different place regarding the risks from Covid than it was two or three or four years ago, and it is perfectly justifiable that many Americans are less interested in hearing about Covid than they were then. Perhaps it is also natural to not want to hear about public health matters at all — the previous years were difficult and painful, after all. But to believe that means we should pass laws discouraging individuals from taking precautions, or to choose not to pursue surveillance measures to actually track the progress of a new disease threat, is a deeply pathological response to an experience of pandemic trauma, and one that implies it is more problematic to remind those around us of ongoing health risks than to take action to limit them. We seem to have memory-holed not just the suffering of Covid-19 but also the initial burst of inspiring if imperfect solidarity it produced, preferring instead to embrace the "bipartisan" indifference our pandemic tribalism ultimately yielded to. Thankfully, bird flu isn't making us pay for it — yet.
David Wallace-Wells
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