By Memorial Day weekend 2021 (around May 27–31), the U.S. was in a much better place than during the winter peak, but COVID-19 was still clearly ongoing and substantially restricting normal life.

• Substantial continuing spread and deaths. Around May 28, 2021, the U.S. seven‑day average was about 17,887 new cases per day, and cumulative deaths had reached roughly 593,000, with more than 33 million infections recorded.(business-standard.com) That is not consistent with a disease being “over,” even in a purely practical sense.

• Restrictions were eased, but far from gone. On May 13, 2021, the CDC said fully vaccinated people could forgo masks in most indoor and outdoor settings, but still required masks in health‑care facilities, on public transportation, and wherever businesses or local rules mandated them, while unvaccinated people were still advised to mask and distance.(cnbc.com) Many states and cities maintained their own mandates and capacity rules through and beyond Memorial Day; for example, New Jersey only lifted its indoor mask rule for vaccinated people on May 28 and still required masks in schools, transit, and other high‑risk settings, while Delaware kept approval requirements for large events and had only just lifted its state mask mandate on May 21.(en.wikipedia.org) Nationwide, masks and other rules continued to shape daily activities.

• Key populations still unprotected and constrained. FDA and CDC only extended vaccine use to ages 12–15 in mid‑May 2021; children under 12 remained ineligible until late October 2021.(biontechse.gcs-web.com) Guidance at the time emphasized ongoing masking and distancing for unvaccinated children in schools, camps, and other group settings, meaning family life and education were still far from pre‑pandemic normal.(kvia.com)

• Later events confirm the pandemic was not “over.” Just two months after Memorial Day, the Delta variant surge forced the CDC on July 27, 2021 to reverse its May guidance and again recommend indoor masking for vaccinated people in areas of substantial or high transmission, underscoring that conditions had not stabilized into a post‑pandemic normal.(cnbc.com)

• Behavioral normalization was partial, not "largely" nationwide. Travel for Memorial Day 2021 was forecast to rebound to about 37 million travelers, still about 13% below 2019 levels, and public health officials were explicitly urging continued caution because “the pandemic continues.”(newsroom.aaa.com)

Taken together—ongoing significant case and death counts, broad yet uneven restrictions, large unvaccinated populations (especially children), and a major subsequent surge—the situation around U.S. Memorial Day 2021 does not match the prediction that COVID-19 would be effectively “over” in the United States in practical terms with life largely normalized and restrictions mostly lifted. The prediction is therefore wrong.