The entire political establishment is in agreement on the need to enforce the pro-corporate policy of “forever COVID,” in which the working class and broad layers of society as a whole are condemned to unending waves of mass infection, death and debilitation with Long COVID.
But it can cause long-term and permanent damage to certain organs, and that is a pretty big reason to care. Unfortunately that fact doesn’t seem to clear the hurdle of point 3 on your list for many people.
Yeah, but so can alcohol, smoking, microplastics, and red meat. Heart disease is back to being the #1 killer of Americans, and humans still prioritize fear over serial killers and Bird Flu rather than heart disease and car accidents.
Humans are notoriously bad at assessing risk. It’s a lot of work to overcome our cognitive biases.
Wonder why heart disease is number one killer of Americans, so hard to figure out /s
You really don’t see the difference between vices that a person chooses to ingest, and people spreading a potentially deadly/debilitating virus to a person unwittingly?
Really?
Yes, I understand the difference between communicable and noncommunicable disease.
The point is that media also rarely talk about these things, and people are not great at taking steps to mitigate their risk. Lots of things we can prevent, or not, still cause us lasting harm. But because those things are mundane, they are not clickbait-y enough to warrant regular coverage.