A recent Washington Post article asks, “Have Public Health Officials Just Given Up on Covid-19?”

On the one hand, the CDC journal MMWR releases a paper claiming that twenty to thirty percent of those who are infected will have long COVID symptoms. While I think that number is too high, especially for vaccinated people (for us, it’s probably closer to one to two percent with severe symptoms*), if the CDC stands behind this estimate, then they should be screaming from the rooftops about masking, as we move back above 100,000 positive cases nation-wide per day–and this is a likely a massive underestimate.

On the other hand, we’re all supposed to go back to normal: sun’s out, guns out, everybody party! Either long COVID is exceedingly rare, or public health officials are giving up. Either way, this is a massive policy failure.

*As I’ve argued many times, 1-2 percent of vaccinated people suffering from long-term, possibly permanent, disability is still too much American Carnage.