People are gullible. People are naïve. People thought that COVID-19 would just go away last summer. Now they are thinking that it will just go away once they are vaccinated. It’s no use trying to educate anyone. Let them believe what they want. But know this: the economy will not simply return to summer 2019 levels at the flip of a switch. That isn’t how macroeconomics works. It will take years -two at the earliest.

On a related topic, our big cities will come back to life. But it will also take years. I’m not really living it up all over Manhattan (although I am making better cocktails at home and plan to resume outdoor dining in March). But I am keeping the city warm until the good times return. Someday.

And while the pandemic will end, the SARS-CoV-2 virus will remain in the human population for centuries. How do I know this? Because I used the Google and learned that what we call seasonal influenza can be traced back to the 1918 flu pandemic. Also H1N1 is a descendant of the 1918 flu. It has been over 120 years. Has influenza gone away? No. Therefore this SARS virus isn’t going away either. How many Americans do we think will die of COVID in 2030? Maybe 20,000? That’s my guess.

So while there won’t be a very strong economic bounce, pandemics continue to bounce like super balls year after year.