> Covid is NOT over

Covid will never be over. In the same way that the flu was never over.

As much as long covid is still fucking up people's lives, unless you want people masked up and socially distanced for the rest of human civilisation's time on this earth you do need to have a return to some version of normalcy on some level at some point.

This isn't a problem with some simple solution that people are too weak-willed to stick to. In a thousand years, people will still be getting some version of COVID-19. The only thing we can do is invest in ventillation in buildings and better attitude towards sickness and screening so that its harder for disease outbreaks to spread. Expecting people a decade from now to still avoid social gatherings is unrealistic.

That does mean people are gonna have their lives ruined by stuff like LC-induced CFS, pneumonia, neurological and heart issues, or even die as a result of the infection itself (not to mention the heartbreaking situation for immuno-suppressed people). To some degree that already happens with the flu. But short of shutting down civilisation permanently and returns to nomadic hunter-gathers, it's not a problem that can just be avoided if we went back in lockdown for another year.

Understanding that strict covid-protocols can't last forever does not have to mean indifference to the problem.