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“At this point, death becomes baked into our expectation of what will happen with this virus,” Benning said. “Whereas before, many people believed it wasn’t any worse than the flu.”
He said that COVID fatigue can lead to less caution, which in turn could result in “twice, three times as many deaths as we could have had.”
“We risk making this a much deadlier virus, by letting it spread unchecked through the community,” Benning said.
That complacency is troubling to Arizona health experts. A state health department spokesperson said in an email this month that pandemic fatigue “is an area of concern as it may cause individuals to let down their guard.”