A lot of people are going to be permanently scarred by Covid just as people were forever traumatized by the Great Depression. A crucial difference, though, is a lot of those people who will have the hardest time letting go of the pandemic I think will be the PMC who experienced the least direct negative consequences.

I believe that’s because many of them are hugely risk-averse already and are vastly damaged by even the relatively-small amount of risk they’ve had to take on. Meanwhile, there is nary a thought for frontline and essential workers and the much greater burden they’ve been laboring under.

Yes, the PMC trauma is real but it’s also pitiful. Well, some of it is performative but I do believe people like Alice Goldfuss and her ilk and legitimately harmed by the effects of the pandemic, but only because they have the resilience of a twig. It’s sad to see. And not satirically sad; just plain ol’ sad.