Our Unfinished Pandemic

Congress is threatening to cut billions in COVID aid even as a new variant emerges. On this week’s On the Media, how our policy debate reveals an indifference for long COVID disabilities and death on a staggering scale. And, how that apathy tracks with a pattern of past pandemics. Plus, a look at the novelist Kurt Vonnegut’s theory of storytelling, and what it tells us about why so many Americans have stopped paying attention to the virus.

1. Ed Yong [@edyong209], staff writer at The Atlantic, on why mass deaths from COVID have failed to provoke a strong political and social reckoning. Listen.
2. Laura Spinney, [@lfspinney], author and science journalist on how pandemics have historically disabled people, and what this teaches us about Covid long-haulers. Listen.
3. Micah Loewinger [@MicahLoewinger], OTM correspondent, on how to make sense of Covid's ever-changing plot, using Kurt Vonnegut's theory of "the shapes of stories." Listen.

Music:
Agnus Dei by Martin Palmeri
Love Theme from Spartacus by Fred Hersch
Passing Time by John Renbourn
Misterioso by Kronos Quartet
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by Brad Mehldau Trio

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