Four Years Later, Covid Isn’t Done With Us
In March 2020, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. went into lockdown. Four years later, Covid has receded into the background of our lives.
As is typical after serious epidemics, people are now seeking out pleasures they had to forego. Domestic air travel has been above prepandemic levels since last spring. In 2023, LiveNation sold a total of 620 million tickets to concerts and events, its biggest year ever.
Data from WHOOP, a wearable fitness tracker, shows that the million users of the device have been dancing much more. Reckless behavior, which often accompanies people’s sense of liberation once a calamity has passed, is also increasing. Americans gambled a record $66.5 billion in 2023.
Compared with 2019, there has been an 18% increase in fatal accidents involving alcohol and a 17% increase in those involving speeding. Over 500 Americans are dying every day from alcohol-related deaths, a 30% increase. Sexually transmitted diseases are rising across the nation, too.
But while we may be done with Covid, it’s not done with us. Over 1.2 million of our fellow Americans have died from the virus, swamping the number of deaths from opioid abuse or gun violence over the last four years. This figure represents excess deaths caused by Covid compared with death tolls of prior years, so it can’t be dismissed as overcounting people who would otherwise have died.
The disease has erased much of our progress in life expectancy in the U.S., which is now lower than it was nearly two decades ago. And the deaths continue: Covid will remain a top 10 killer for a few more years. More than 5% of American adults are currently experiencing long Covid, too, which is not fully preventable by vaccination and for which there is
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