"During covid" is a misleading name for "2020" or "the time with the regulations" or "the time when covid deaths were in the news a lot".
Now is "during covid" as well. "During covid" is still happening now.
It went away from news media and government funding. It didn't go away from real life.
Who profited from creating the impression that it's not worth worrying about any more?
Who benefits from convincing us that the best outcome is "back to previous normal" with no upgrades or changes?
@unchartedworlds “During lockdown” captures some of it.
@unchartedworlds COVID is still with us, but there is a real distinction between the early pandemic and now. The excess mortality in the first and second waves was very high, but after widespread vaccination and exposure (and the deaths of the most vulnerable) the level of excess mortality is now equivalent to winter influenza peaks. Here's figures for European countries, 2020-2023:
Nørgaard, S.K., Nielsen, J., Schjørring, C.B. et al. Excess mortality in Europe estimated by EuroMOMO during the COVID-19 pandemic and previous influenza seasons. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-67981-1
I wish people and governments took all respiratory illness more seriously, especially because of its long-term effects (I still mask in public when I can and I isolate when ill), but this does help explain why people see a difference between then and now. The level of illness and death is more "normal", even though normalising tens of thousands of deaths of flu - or COVID - a year is terrible.
@mattjhodgkinson @unchartedworlds
i try to say "early in the pandemic" or "high pandemic" sometimes to mark the distinction but not erase that we're still in it
@mattjhodgkinson @unchartedworlds
Death is not the only measure worth considering, quality of life is right there as well. For example long covid has now overtaken asthma as the most common chronic illness in children:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2834486
Economics: record leave of absence was (very likely) responsible for Germany tipping into a recession in 2023: https://www.barrons.com/news/germany-s-economy-ails-as-sick-leave-hurts-output-087dcc0e
And every covid infection does lasting damage to your body: https://www.panaccindex.info/p/what-covid-19-does-to-the-body-fifth
