There is enough post‑June‑2021 evidence to argue both that life/comedy returned to something close to pre‑pandemic normal relatively quickly and that it clearly did not fully return to a pre‑COVID “normal,” so the prediction can’t be cleanly scored.

Evidence it was broadly right (for day‑to‑day social life & comedy):

• Major live entertainment and comedy institutions came back at or near full capacity within months. Broadway was authorized to reopen at 100% capacity starting September 14, 2021, with tickets going on sale in May 2021. (cnbc.com)
• U.S. late‑night talk shows quickly returned to in‑person, full‑capacity audiences. The Tonight Show went back to a full audience on June 7, 2021; The Late Show with Stephen Colbert did so on June 14, 2021, making the Ed Sullivan Theater the first Broadway theater to reopen at full capacity. (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Daily Show restored a live studio audience by April 2022, showing that even more cautious, politically charged comedy formats resumed normal taping conditions within about a year. (en.wikipedia.org) By 2022–2023, stand‑up tours, festivals, and club shows were widely back, and COVID was a routine subject of jokes and open debate in mainstream comedy.

Evidence it was broadly wrong (for society being “back to normal”):

• COVID remained a major health crisis for years after June 2021. The U.S. federal COVID‑19 public‑health emergency was repeatedly extended and only expired May 11, 2023, more than 22 months after the prediction. (oig.hhs.gov) WHO likewise did not end COVID’s status as a global public‑health emergency until May 5, 2023. (forbes.com)
• CDC data show COVID remained a leading cause of death in the U.S. through 2022 (third in 2020–2021, fourth in 2022), and that while hospitalizations and deaths fell substantially after early 2022, COVID stayed an “ongoing public health challenge,” not a background non‑issue. (cdc.gov) Expert commentary in 2025 describes COVID as having become endemic rather than gone, still causing tens of thousands of U.S. deaths annually. (washingtonpost.com)
• Structural and behavioral changes—hybrid/remote work, changed travel patterns, periodic local mask mandates in healthcare or high‑risk settings, and persistent political conflict and platform moderation fights over COVID discourse—mean overall society never fully reverted to the pre‑2020 baseline, even if many visible aspects of leisure and comedy did.

Why the outcome is ambiguous:

• If you interpret “largely pre‑pandemic normal” to mean most ordinary social and entertainment activities look and feel similar to 2019, then by late 2021–2022 (roughly a year after the prediction) that was substantially true: people were again going to theaters, comedy clubs, and live tapings without severe, continuous restrictions, and COVID was widely joked about and argued over in mainstream culture.
• If instead you interpret it to mean a broad return of society and institutions to the pre‑COVID baseline, the long duration of formal emergencies, continued high mortality, and durable changes in work, health policy, and political conflict indicate we did not simply “go back to normal pretty quick.”

Because both interpretations are reasonable and lead to opposite verdicts, the prediction is best classified as ambiguous rather than clearly right or clearly wrong.