The Pandemic Never Ended. We Only Pretend it Did

It's been over half a decade since COVID-19 became a global pandemic. I still distinctly remember the headlines of the bizarre, worrying cases of "Wuhan pneumonia" in January of 2020, only a few months before the entire world would be shut down.

The world has moved on, hasn't it? The pandemic is in past tense. A shared, collective trauma. A wound to our zeitgeist now healing. Something that still has lasting damage to our children's education and social skills, sure—but nobody has to worry about "getting" COVID-19 anymore, no countries are shut down anymore.

Right?

There is a smaller, radically different reality where this simply isn't the case. There are a group of people who are trying to shake everyone else awake—urgently trying to inform us that COVID-19 is ongoing. That COVID-19 is an existential threat.

I want to listen to them.

Where We Stand

As of mid-January 2026, COVID-19 infections are growing or likely growing in 31 states. The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative estimates there are over 700,000 new daily infections in the U.S., with rapid increases expected through the end of January. COVID-19 activity is low but increasing nationally, following the predictable winter surge pattern occuring since 2020.

Globally, test positivity rates reached 11% in May 2025, levels not seen since July 2024. The virus continues to mutate, with new variants driving the majority of current cases. New variants are expected to emerge, potentially more immune evasive than their predecessors.

Yet as of January 2026, only 16.7% of adults and 6.9% of children have received the updated 2025-2026 COVID vaccine. Fewer than 25% of Americans received boosters in the 2024-2025 season, the lowest uptake since COVID vaccines became available, and half the influenza vaccine uptake during the same period. We have collectively decided that COVID is over.

The virus disagrees.

The Long Haul

The numbers are staggering, but they don't capture what it means to live with long COVID. Jennifer Barchi fell ill in late December 2019, believing it was just a cold as she celebrated her son's first birthday. Soon, she began experiencing unusual symptoms. Difficulty climbing stairs, frequent sinus infections, and noticeable cognitive changes. Years later, she still lives with the effects.

Or consider Kerstin, who before COVID was "a really normal healthy and fit person." Now, she says, "I felt like a battery that never charges properly. It felt like something is fundamentally wrong, but no one can tell me what it is." Simple tasks like unloading a dishwasher leave her breathless. Her husband now handles 90% of the housework.

Dr. Alison Cohen, a long COVID researcher at UCSF, contracted COVID in January 2022. The debilitating symptoms like fatigue, inability to sit or stand for long periods have all never gone away. As she notes, over a third of Americans have not even heard of long COVID. Many people don't realize they have it because symptoms fluctuate and come and go, making it difficult to connect them to their prior infection.

The Longer Haul

The catastrophe is what comes after the infection. Globally, over 400 million people have experienced long COVID. Current estimates suggest that 6-7% of adults and about 1% of children develop long COVID after infection, though these figures vary widely based on methodology and definitions.

A comprehensive meta-analysis of 429 studies found that 36% of COVID-19 positive individuals develop long COVID, with regional variation: 35% in Asia, 39% in Europe, 30% in North America, and 51% in South America. For those still experiencing symptoms 1-2 years post-infection, the pooled prevalence was 47%.

The numbers are staggering, but they don't capture the human reality. Long COVID presents with over 200 documented symptoms, affecting nearly every organ system. And critically, for a subset of patients, symptoms are expected to be lifelong.

Fewer than 8% of people with long COVID fully recover.

ME/CFS

For many, long COVID is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) by another name.

A RECOVER study found that 4.5% of people who had COVID-19 met ME/CFS diagnostic criteria, compared to just 0.6% of those who never had COVID. People with COVID-19 were about 5 times more likely to develop ME/CFS, and new cases of ME/CFS occurred at a rate 15 times higher than before the pandemic.

Among long COVID patients, approximately 51% satisfy ME/CFS diagnostic criteria, according to a meta-analysis of 13 studies covering 1,973 patients. Another analysis found that 13-45% of people with persistent, debilitating symptoms following acute COVID-19 meet the National Academy of Medicine case definition for ME/CFS.

ME/CFS is not a minor condition. 75% of ME/CFS patients are too ill to work, and a quarter are unable to leave their homes or beds. According to the late Dr. William Reeves, former head of Viral Diseases at the CDC, "the level of functional impairment in people who suffer from CFS is comparable to multiple sclerosis, AIDS, end-stage renal failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease".

COVID-19 and Post-Acute Sequelae are just one example of many chronic illnesses afflicting millions of people around the world. Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, chronic Lyme disease, mast cell activation syndrome. These are debilitating, life-altering diseases our current science does not fully understand.

There is no cure. As of 2025, there are no established effective treatments for long COVID.

The Economy

Research estimates the annual global economic cost of long COVID at $1 trillion which is about 1% of global GDP. In the U.S. alone, Harvard economist David Cutler has estimated the total economic cost at $3.7 trillion.

16 million working-age Americans suffer from long COVID. Brookings estimated in 2022 that 4 million Americans were out of work due to long COVID, a number that has likely grown since. Two-thirds of those affected have seen their ability to work diminished, with many forced to sacrifice social activities and essential tasks just to stay employed.

One study concluded that symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection may have contributed to over 12.9 million individuals not returning to work within three months of infection. The Federal Reserve found that compared to uninfected people, those with symptoms lasting more than 12 weeks were 10% less likely to be employed at all, and if employed, worked 50% fewer hours.

There has been an increase of around 1.7 million disabled persons in the U.S. since the pandemic began, with close to one million newly disabled workers. This has been described as a "mass disabling event".

We Know How to Prevent This

We have the tools to dramatically reduce COVID transmission and prevent these life-altering outcomes. We refuse to use them.

Masks Work.

The science is unequivocal. N95 and KN95 respirators filter out at least 95% of airborne particles. A comprehensive California study found that always using a face mask or respirator in indoor public settings was associated with 56% lower odds of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. Specifically, wearing N95/KN95 respirators was associated with 83% lower odds, and surgical masks with 66% lower odds compared to not wearing a mask.

A meta-analysis found N95 respirators provided significant protective effects, particularly for medical staff. Studies during SARS outbreaks showed that routine clinical mask use cut virus transmission by up to 70%, and surgical masks filtered about 90% of viral aerosols during influenza outbreaks.

The CDC itself states that wearing the most protective mask you can comfortably wear for extended periods that fits well is the most effective option.

Vaccines Work.

COVID-19 vaccines work. A 2024-2025 VA study found significant protection against emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and critical illness, with the best and most lasting protection against critical illness. The vaccines also reduce the risk of developing long COVID, though they don't eliminate it entirely.

But with only 16.7% of adults vaccinated with the 2025-2026 vaccine, we've abandoned this line of defense.

A Personal Question

Let me ask you, reader, a personal question: do you mask when you go out in public? I'm going to assume you're in the majority and answer no. Maybe you think the need of face-to-face interaction takes precedent over the medical good masks do. Maybe you have your own respiratory issues that make masking difficult. Maybe you see the fascist cowards of ICE and don't want to partake in the same masking they're doing. Maybe you don't have the money for a consistent N95 supply.

Maybe you're just tired. It's been so long, you think. Let me host events and run my errands like things are back to normal.

Things are not back to normal. You know this. And it may seem as though kidnapping the president of a foreign country and threats of warfare to capture another or the detention and murder of people in the United States by federal law enforcement would take precedent over an illness that we have been vaccinated against for years, now.

I understand this urge and instinct. There can only be so many spinning plates. We can only stretch and spread ourselves so thin until we are a transparent membrane, see-through with no solid inner.

The Social Schism

So why aren't we using these tools? Pandemic fatigue, misinformation, political polarization, and psychological reactance.

Network analyses of anti-mask attitudes found that the central nodes are (1) beliefs that masks are ineffective, and (2) psychological reactance. These attitudes are linked to anti-vaccination views, beliefs that COVID's threat has been exaggerated, disregard for social distancing, and political conservatism.

As of December 2025, Democrats (34%) were more likely than Republicans (20%) or Independents (19%) to have received an updated COVID-19 vaccine. Political affiliation has become a better predictor of COVID precautions than actual risk.

Meanwhile, adherence to protective behaviors like masking declined after vaccines were rolled out, the Omicron variant became dominant, and mask mandates were dropped. The public declared victory and went home, even as the virus continued to spread and disable.

The Unknown

Let me tell you something important: this is hubris. There is so much we do not know. Our own bodies and biology and neurology are still as unknown to us as dark energy or the ecosystems at the bottom of our oceans.

And, because of that lack of understanding, and because these illnesses predominantly afflict women, they are not treated with the same urgency or legitimacy as other afflictions.

Medical Gaslighting

Women are twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with a mental illness when their symptoms are actually consistent with heart disease. People of color face similar dismissal. False beliefs entrenched in medical education—like the persistent myth that Black people's skin is thicker—lead to Black patients being assigned lower pain scores and not receiving appropriate treatment compared to their white counterparts.

In the context of long COVID specifically, many participants reported their symptoms were dismissed or misattributed to mental health conditions. A study analyzing 334 individuals with long COVID found widespread experiences of medical gaslighting. One researcher with long COVID wrote about witnessing "woman after woman, irrespective of their socioeconomic status, race or country location, share stories about how doctors were not believing them about their COVID-19 symptoms".

Our medicine and treatment plans for these illnesses often include CBT—cognitive behavioral therapy. Learning how to cultivate a positive headspace and mindset for any patient is a good thing, but it does not heal what needs to be healed. CBT for ME/CFS has been highly controversial, with the influential PACE trial criticized for changing outcome criteria mid-study and showing no objective improvement in fitness or physical function. The CDC removed CBT and GET (graded exercise therapy) recommendations from their ME/CFS guidance in 2017.

These are illnesses with research underfunded in a field already severely under-resourced and overwhelmed. In a field where women and people of color are medically gaslit into thinking their pain isn't that bad and then die from lack of proper treatment. In a field where, conversely, doctors and nurses are subjected to verbal and physical abuse by patients.

ME/CFS receives only 7% of the funding that would be commensurate with its disease burden, making it the most underfunded disease relative to burden among all diseases tracked by the NIH. Research funding would need to increase roughly 14-fold to be commensurate with disease burden. In 2025, NIH funding for ME/CFS actually decreased to $7.4 million for 18 projects, down from $10.1 million the previous year.

Living in the Schism

This leaves those who still mask in an impossible position. We see the data. We understand the risks. We know people with long COVID, or we have it ourselves. We watch as 85% of disability claims are rejected on the first round, as additional medical expenses can run $8,000 per year per patient.

We're living through what will be remembered as one of the largest public health failures in modern history. A preventable, mass disabling event that we collectively chose not to prevent.

There is No Opinion, Here

The truth is, none of us have any ground to stand on when it comes to this argument. It is not simply a matter of opinion whether COVID-19 is an issue still or not. It is not an opinion whether masking is a good idea still or not. There is an ethical, moral answer here, and there is an unethical, immoral alternative which the majority of us are consistently choosing, whether deliberately or not.

As much as we are meant to be stewards of the land, we also must be stewards of each other. Of our community. Of those who cannot take care of themselves. Those who claim they care about accessibility must do the work to make socialization and gathering truly accessible and safe.

We must reckon with this complete schism in the perception of our current reality. We must tend and take care of our weak and ill. We must remember that empathy and love are the only ways out of this. We must remember that friction and good work are not things to run away from in exchange for convenience and expediency.

The pandemic isn't over. It never ended. We stopped caring.

And every day that disconnect continues, more people join the ranks of the disabled, more families face financial ruin, and more of our collective future is sacrificed on the altar of wanting things to be normal.

Normal isn't coming back. The question is how much more we're willing to lose before we accept that.