When COVID-19 began to spread around the world, municipalities did all they could to stop the spread of the deadly virus, shutting down businesses, cancelling events, and telling everyone to stay home except for necessities. The 2020 lockdowns were an isolating and scary time for many, especially as the death toll rose, supply chains ruptured and hospitals were besieged with the sick and dying.

Nearly five years later, the world has seemingly figured out how to live with COVID. Schools and businesses are open. Public spaces no longer have mask mandates. Vaccines are widely available — at least for some in the United States, and an anti-viral medication called Paxlovid exists to treat severe cases and those with a higher risk of developing a severe infection. While much of our public infrastructure has moved on, the way humans approach and react to illness has changed.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Salon he’s noticed a change in how people view and approach viruses in two ways: some people now minimize the concern, and some people are hyper-aware of the threats.

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“There was a surge in respiratory viruses in children, with RSV and influenza, as well as bacterial infections like Group A strep, and you had some people thinking of this as the end of the world,” Adalja said. “And then you have people who, anytime there's a disease alert, whether it's about mpox or eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), they think ‘this is the media blowing this out of proportion.’”

Infectious disease, he said, has increasingly become something “viewed through a political, tribal lens” since the COVID pandemic began, rather than something that people........

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