The ‘End’ of COVID Is Still Far Worse Than We Imagined

When is the pandemic “over”? In the early days of 2020, we envisioned it ending with the novel coronavirus going away entirely. When this became impossible, we hoped instead for elimination: If enough people got vaccinated, herd immunity might largely stop the virus from spreading. When this too became impossible, we accepted that the virus would still circulate but imagined that it could become, optimistically, like one of the four coronaviruses that cause common colds or, pessimistically, like something more severe, akin to the flu.

Instead, COVID has settled into something far worse than the flu. When President Joe Biden declared this week, “The pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing masks,” the country was still recording more than —more than triple the average number from flu.