We have plenty of small scale collapses that weren't of limited duration. It's just that such things are typically only noted by archeologists. We only see the survivors and thus conclude that collapse isn't an existential problem.

I do agree on Covid disability. Early on we saw some pretty dire predictions, but since then it's mostly been an exercise in muddying the waters. Lots of wheel-spinning about what constitutes long Covid when they should have simply been collecting data on the various symptoms. Better to not see the problem than have to deal with it.

Look at how we were handling AIDS before we discovered it was HIV destroying the immune system. Long Covid is still at that stage--we are seeing a slew of highly varied effects rather than the mechanism.