due to long covid, which has devastated the US workforce. Many Americans have become long-term or permanently disabled to some degree.

Do not assume the virus will evolve to be "weaker". Smallpox, polio, etc. did not evolve to be harmless. HIV, like SARS-COV2, is an RNA virus; AIDS still kills. SARS-COV2 is like HIV in the sense that it can be transmitted without showing symptoms, therefore the selective pressures toward a "weaker" phenotype will not be as strong.

As it is, the currently circulating virus is not the same as the virus that the vaccines were designed for. The virus populations have evolved in the last few years. Mutations have occurred (remember, this is an RNA virus so it is probably more prone to mutations than a DNA virus) and natural selection favours the mutants which reproduce better. So by now, the available vaccines are less effective than they used to be because they best target older variants that are no longer common.

In fact, the Chinese vaccines that the western media says don't work are probably more effective at this point than the RNA vaccines. The RNA vaccines specifically target the spike protein and nothing else, while the inactivated viral vaccines utilise the whole virus. Since the spike protein is necessary for entry into the cell, it will be under greater selective pressure and has probably evolved to be very different by now. In the US, the FDA has ALREADY discontinued some antibody treatments because the spike proteins they were originally supposed to target have changed too much to recognize now. In contrast, other viral proteins may not have changed so much if they are not under such intense selection.

I would much rather completely destroy the economy than kill or cripple much of the population, as what happened in the US. You can't worship the almighty dollar and you cna't let business corporations control the government. With China it would be even worse due to the deficient medical sector and the widespread and intractable health superstitions of the public. The PRC has more resources and more state capacity than the US so I do not understand why they did not keep the lockdowns going for longer. At least a million deaths are projected to result from this foolish decision. But we won't even know the true number since they curtailed mass testing and stopped keeping track of infections. I never expected such a thing to happen. I wonder if someone high up got bribed?