  We show that the gaseous halos of collapsed objects introduce a substantial
cumulative opacity to ionizing radiation, even after the smoothly distributed
hydrogen in the intergalactic medium has been fully reionized. This opacity
causes a delay of around unity in redshift between the time of the overlap of
ionized bubbles in the intergalactic medium and the lifting of complete
Gunn-Peterson Lyman alpha absorption. The minihalos responsible for this
screening effect are not resolved by existing numerical simulations of
reionization.
