Yes I get it, but that's just paranoia.
The politicians are responsible, and I follow the maxim, never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

I just find it so hard to believe that these institutions and highly credentialed experts/politicians are that incompetent. I revered the US federal government as a force for good. It’s hard not to be cynical.

Absolutely not incompetence; authority figures of all types and all levels are drunk on power and will hold on to it as long as they can get away with it. They'll use new rationale after rationale to prolong the "crisis" ad infinitum until somebody steps up and stops them.

I’ve used the GWOT analogy before on here. How long did all the fear and terror, permanent expansion of power, wars, etc go on for?

more than 10 years to say the least.

could you imagine if this shat goes on for that long?

Definitely a crap shoot internationally. Domestically what are we up to = 43% of previous year standings on the TSA tracker or thereabouts. I will go with Japan’s (JAL) 3 year estimate for international travel to be consistently at a sustainable/profitable level since the onset in early 2020. Not a “roaring” comeback but decent plateau in the 75% plus range perhaps, maybe, hopefully... Totally spitballing like everyone else. I’ll take another look-see in the Far East next week.

US Airlines back testing for international travel...

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/20...rements-report

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN29929H

Panic-porn hysteria from the TODAY show - "We may need to (wear masks and update the vaccine) hopefully not every year but potentially on a regular basis in order to keep ahead of changes the virus is making,"

That's right - they said on the TODAY show this morning that we would be wearing masks periodically for the rest of our lives. I would hope before we do something so asinine we have some actual evidence they do something, though - at least better than "mmmhh, can't hurt".

Travel Group opposes mandatory vaccination for international travel...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN29G0TY

Why that’s - at best - chaff and flares to deceive the public rather than a scientific solution:

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/c...work-well.html

Works for TSA. Creates lots of government jobs. What's not to love?