Maskless Super Bowl marks our return to normalcy

This was the end of the pandemic in the United States — or at least the primary signal that, as a culture, we are ready for the end.

Hearing this may be enraging, of course. A significant number of Americans lost loved ones in the last two years and have felt that the country never took Covid seriously enough. Fine. It also might enrage you perhaps because your children are still going to schools a few miles away from the stadium wearing masks, or are subject to other forms of health theater, with general mask mandates in L.A. County having applied to everyone two and older. I understand those feelings. I’m just like the rest of you in the blue states, pleading with the local school board for relief.

That a football game could “end” a pandemic may seem absurd — what does it have to do with the spread, with the facts of the disease and the latest variants, or with the rate of vaccine uptake? But cultures never make sense as pure calculations about inputs and outputs. Ultimately, we make a collective cultural decision about whether we are in a state of emergency or not. A big, raucous crowd of unmasked fans at a football game in America is normal. Broadcasting that game — and studiously refusing to reference or mention the pandemic — is a giant flashing sign. You probably have moved on or are about to move on. We’re moving on, too.