KURT SCHLICHTER: Understand That Some People Love the Pandemic.

The initial pandemic uproar broke people out of their rut, which is kind of an odd notion since most of the people in human history would absolutely love to be in the rut Americans were as a people. But as bizarre as it is, and as strange when you look at it closely, it’s still a real thing. People yearned, at some level, for some kind of excitement, and the pandemic had to do.

Now, the better adjusted among us put that nonsense aside pretty quickly. The novelty wore off fast and the stupid masks and inability to eat our bone-in ribeyes inside of restaurants like normal people got old quick. Not all of us had jobs we could do from our laptop in the rumpus room, and this whole thing is a lot less fun if you’re out of a job. But millions are not really put out all that much. They could do their diversity consulting or whatever at home alongside their many cats and allow themselves to be swept away by the excitement of the pandemic.

And now you can see them not wanting to give it up. They talk about nothing but the vaccines, but they also want to disregard their effect and make believe the plague is still sweeping the country. They chatter about herd immunity, but they also fear reaching it because that would mean going back to their old, boring lives.

Some also don’t seem to care much about the damage the big lockdown imposed on Americans and their businesses, as this Hill headline illustrates: It’s time to stop feeling sorry for restaurants.