We will be grappling with the impacts for at least a generation. To name a few: 1. For a time we had the largest impact seen on reducing poverty than we've see

We will be grappling with the impacts for at least a generation. To name a few: 1. For a time we had the largest impact seen on reducing poverty than we've seen in decades [1] but it was temporary. This goes against particularly American dogma against a social safety net. Another example of this was Bolsa Familia [2]. So we can no longer ignore that we, as a society, are choosing for people to be poor with all the negative externalities that comes from that; 2. Over a million Americans died from Covid yet we have a significant percentage of the population who think that Covid isn't real; 3. mRNA vaccines are a medical miracle that have been in the works for decades [3] and quite literally saved tens of millions of lives worldwide [4] yet antivaxxer sentiment persists [5], even with people who have a college science education; 4. We essentially returned to work to make the wealthy even wealthier and ditched our masks, which cost lives particularly for those who are immunocompromised and/or cannot take a vaccine for medical reasons. This starkly highlights how we, as a society, make a calculation as to how much inconvenience we're willing to tolerate over people dying.. This isn't new. For example, tens of thousands of Americans die every year in road accidents, many of which are preventable (eg excessive speeding, DUIs) and we just accept that's going to happen; and 5. Additionally, and this goes to your point, Covid was a mass disabling event. How our society treats the disabled was already disgraceful and it doesn't get much attention. A disability largely means society wants to discard you, or at least sweep you under the rug so other people don't have to think about you. I am of course talking about the so-called "ugly laws" [6]. While we largely don't have them now, it still exemplifies how we treat disabled people. [1]: https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/expiration-of-pandemic-relief-led-to-record-increases-in-poverty https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/expirat... [2]: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2010/05/27/br-bolsa-familia https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2010/05/27/br-bols... [3]: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w [4]: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(22)00320-6/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... [5]: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/anti-science/us-survey-reveals-growing-distrust-vaccines-embrace-untruths https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/anti-science/us-survey-reveals-gr... [6]: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/history-of-ugly-laws-america-disability https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/history-o...