Great news!

Sharks are swarming off the coast of the Outer Banks. Nine great whites so far. One, named Breton, is a 13-foot adult male weighing over 1,400 pounds according to a story in Saturday’s Virginian-Pilot.

Why is this good news?

Because it’s a sign that covid is truly over. The general public may not be aware of this, but shark stories are a staple of digital news outlets because they generate thousands of clicks. Anyone else remember the summer of 2001? The news media was full of shark attack and Chandra Levy stories.

Until the terrorist attacks of September 11 bumped the clickbait off the front pages, that is.

We haven’t been reading a great deal about sharks for the past three years because the news media found something better to scare the bejabbers out of the public: “scary-new-variants-are-coming” and “covid-isn’t-over” stories.

Think about it: Since 2020, anything with “Covid” in the headline - especially stories stoking the fear factor - were hot tickets for news outlets. The fact that newspapers, including the all-covid-all-the-time New York Times, have finally ditched their tedious daily Covid tracking charts is a sign that the public long ago lost interest.

In fact, Congress finally acted last week to terminate the executive emergency powers that the pandemic gave to Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

The U.S. Senate voted 68-23 to officially end the covid emergency, even though Biden planned to “wind it down” beginning May 11. Only 23 Senate knobturners voted against the measure, including the usual far-left suspects: Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker.

Sigh.

A headline like: “A Shark Party Is Happening Off the Outer Banks. Here’s A Rundown of Who’s There” is a welcome change. And let’s face it, it’s irresistible.

Shoot, it was the first story I clicked on when I went online Saturday.

Sure, people will be afraid to go into the water for a while this summer. But that’s better than forcing people to wear masks and closing the beaches.