Are Americans “done with COVID,” as the journalist Bari Weiss said she was on last week’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” triggering a frenzy of commentary and controversy?
The short answer is: not yet. According to the latest Yahoo News/YouGov poll, nearly 7 in 10 Americans (69 percent) say the pandemic is not “over in the U.S.,” and just a third (34 percent) say it’s “over as it pertains to [their] own life,” regardless of whether it’s “over for others.” The fast-moving Omicron variant is still causing 500,000 cases and 2,500 deaths a day; more than 140,000 COVID patients are currently hospitalized.
The longer answer, however, is that a broader embrace of