Two great sighs of relief were heard when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced relaxed masking guidelines.
Of course, one sigh came from those who are heartily tired of wearing masks. I have been wearing one 12½ hours a day in the ER; there are new co-workers I have worked alongside full time for a year whose faces I don’t even know!
The other sigh of relief came from zillions of little coronaviruses that have been finding it ever more difficult to infect new human hosts. Masking, distancing, vaccines – it hasn’t been easy to be a virus lately! Just ask the poor influenza virus, which wasn’t able to get a foothold at all last season. Vaccine hesitancy has bolstered the coronavirus’ courage; now, newly relaxed precautions could allow it to get back to its business of infecting humans, mutating into more potent variants and generally causing misery.
True, things have been looking up from the human perspective recently, but it ain’t over ’til it’s over, and we won’t be sure it’s over until it’s already been over for some time. Until then, we must not allow politically and economically expedient de-masking to play right into the coronavirus’ hand. Don’t become its next host!
Ed Clopton
Westbrook
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