Summary: <p>Congress is threatening to cut billions in COVID aid even as a new variant emerges. On this week’s On the Media, how our policy debate reveals an indifference for long COVID disabilities and death on a staggering scale. And, how that apathy tracks with a pattern of past pandemics. Plus, a look at the novelist Kurt Vonnegut’s theory of storytelling, and what it tells us about why so many Americans have stopped paying attention to the virus.</p> <ol> Ed Yong [<a href="https://twitter.com/edyong209">@edyong209</a>], staff writer at <em>The Atlantic, </em>on why mass deaths from COVID have failed to provoke a strong political and social reckoning. <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/pandemic-death-covid-normal">Listen</a>. Laura Spinney, [<a href="https://twitter.com/lfspinney">@lfspinney</a>], author and science journalist on how pandemics have historically disabled people, and what this teaches us about Covid long-haulers. <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/why-we-should-have-seen-long-covid-coming-on-the-media">Listen</a>. Micah Loewinger [<a href="http://www.wnycstudios.org/twitter.com/MicahLoewinger">@MicahLoewinger</a>], OTM correspondent, on how to make sense of Covid's ever-changing plot, using Kurt Vonnegut's theory of "the shapes of stories." <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/kurt-vonnegut-and-shape-pandemic2">Listen</a>. </ol> <p><em>Music:</em><em>Agnus Dei by Martin PalmeriLove Theme from Spartacus by Fred Hersch</em><em>Passing Time by John Renbourn</em><em>Misterioso by Kronos QuartetBewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by Brad Mehldau Trio</em></p> <p> </p> <p> </p>
