The first day of my undergraduate course on evolutionary medicine comes with a new disclaimer, presented just after we’ve surveyed the syllabus and discussed my policies on attendance, accommodations and other fine print: We will not spend a significant amount of time talking about COVID-19. This is a response to an observation supported by my interactions with people from many walks of life: We all suffer from a social syndrome that some call “Covid fatigue,” for which any mention of the pandemic crashes our human CPUs, and we immediately lose interest in the conversation. (This social version of Covid fatigue is a play on words, as the term can also describe the clinical consequences of long Covid for individuals.)
While I’ve given in to social Covid fatigue at the classroom level, I have now decided — more than five years after the SARS-CoV-2 virus reached U.S. shores — that we need to muster the energy to reflect on the pandemic and extract a few lasting messages to help us rethink many aspects of science, and the world.
