The Pandemic Never Ended. We Only Pretend it Did
Six years into COVID-19, the world has moved on while the virus continues to disable millions. An examination of the ongoing pandemic, long COVID, and our collective failure to prevent a mass disabling event.
t's been over half a decade since COVID-19 became a global pandemic. I still distinctly remember the headlines of the bizarre, worrying cases of ["Wuhan pneumonia"](https://www.science.org/content/article/novel-human-virus-pneumonia-cases-linked-seafood-market-china-stir-concern) in January of 2020, only a few months before the entire world would be shut down.
The world has moved on, hasn't it? The pandemic is in past tense. A shared, collective trauma. A wound to our zeitgeist now healing. Something that still has lasting damage to our children's education and social skills, sure—but nobody has to worry about "getting" COVID-19 anymore, no countries are shut down anymore.
Right?
There is a smaller, radically different reality where this simply isn't the case. There are a group of people who are trying to shake everyone else awake—urgently trying to inform us that COVID-19 is ongoing. That COVID-19 is an existential threat.
I want to listen to them.
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## Where We Stand
As of mid-January 2026, [COVID-19 infections are growing or likely growing in 31 states](https://www.today.com/health/coronavirus/covid-symptoms-2025-holiday-surge-rcna249681). The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative estimates there are [over 700,000 new daily infections in the U.S.](https://www.pmc19.com/data/index.php), with rapid increases expected through the end of January. [COVID-19 activity is low but increasing nationally](https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/data/index.html), following the predictable winter surge pattern occuring since 2020.
Globally, [test positivity rates reached 11% in May 2025](https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/summary), levels not seen since July 2024. The virus continues to mutate, with new variants driving the majority of current cases. [New variants are expected to emerge](https://www.newsweek.com/covid-19-2026-experts-explain-expectations-11214879), potentially more immune evasive than their predecessors.
Yet as of January 2026, only [16.7% of adults](https://www.cdc.gov/covidvaxview/weekly-dashboard/index.html) and [6.9% of children](https://www.cdc.gov/covidvaxview/weekly-dashboard/index.html) have received the updated 2025-2026 COVID vaccine. Fewer than [25% of Americans received boosters](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2506929) in the 2024-2025 season, the lowest uptake since COVID vaccines became available, and half the influenza vaccine uptake during the same period. We have collectively decided that COVID is over.
The virus disagrees.
## The Long Haul
The numbers are staggering, but they don't capture what it means to live with long COVID. Jennifer Barchi [fell ill in late December 2019](https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/2025/05/i-want-my-wife-to-have-her-life-back-a-journey-through
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