Pandemic Apathy

In a recent article in The New Republic titled, “Why We’ve Succumbed to Pandemic Apathy,” science writer Marion Renault explores why so many people have become apathetic about the pandemic, despite the fact that millions of people are contracting COVID each day during the surge from the Omicron variant. Apathy, Renault finds, may be a psychological defense mechanism that has played out in humanity throughout history at times of great loss, like plague and war. Renault writes, “As the pandemic’s horrors evolve yet again, apathy offers a blunt, last-ditch psychological defense. It numbs our remaining senses. It steels our growing weaknesses. It acknowledges the intolerability of reality by ignoring it altogether.”

You can read Renault’s article here.