The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the most devastating events in public health in the U.S. over the last half-century. It's also the most scrutinized health emergency in history. But one aspect of the outbreak that has gone largely unnoticed is the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus back-and-forth between humans and other mammals and the threat that poses. Even as the virus has faded from the headlines, animal-human transmission is on the rise. A failure to fully understand what is going on could lead to yet another major health crisis.

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We have learned a lot about the SARS-CoV-2 virus during the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, new viral variants, such as the many subtypes of Omicron, are less susceptible to the vaccines developed to protect against the original Wuhan SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, protection from the vaccines wanes substantially with time. For those reasons and because vaccine uptake, especially of boosters, has been anemic in the U.S., we are still experiencing almost 2,000 deaths per week.

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The peak of COVID-19 infections might be behind us – at least until the next "variant of concern" of the SARS-CoV-2 virus appears – but the scourge of long COVID lives on. And on.

As defined by the CDC, "post-COVID conditions" encompass a wide range of new, returning, or ongoing symptoms or health problems that people experience at least four weeks following an acute COVID infection. They can include severe fatigue that worsens with exertion, fever, or various respiratory, cardiac, neurological, musculoskeletal, or digestive system symptoms.

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It is not uncommon for legislators to introduce bills that they know won't pass but that have symbolic value of some sort, like renaming a bridge or freeway to honor a constituent. Every so often, however, they propose something that they intend to become law that is so completely ill-conceived and anti-social that it becomes the very personification of politicians' irresponsibility and incompetence. Two examples come to mind, one at the end of the 19^th Century, the other just last month.

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I'm old enough to remember when "wokeness" was called "political correctness." And "DEI" — diversity, equity, and inclusion — was subsumed under the term "affirmative action," which often meant hiring, promoting, or admitting underqualified people from "underrepresented" demographic groups.

Whatever the labels, I have had several distasteful confrontations with them over the years.

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