For many months, I’ve found myself asking the same question as a small child on a long road trip: Are we there yet? Surely COVID can’t affect us much longer. There have been many moments, especially in the past month or two, where it has felt like there won’t be much longer to go, that we’ve finally triumphed over the Coronavirus. But, have we?
In earnest, we have not. It’s here to stay, making its rounds within our greater community for many years to come. We’ll have to make peace with it. But, as for the acute stage of the pandemic, I would like to say yes. We’ve weathered upwards of two years revolving around social distancing, masking, and pixelated Zoom classes, not to mention the intense mental effects of repeated isolation, fear, and the disruption of life as we knew it. When the Omicron wave hit us, I thought I was peering at the light at the end of the tunnel. And, up until now, I’ve continued to believe this.
Prior to the last month or so, I took COVID safety very seriously. I got vaccinated as soon as I could, I double-masked everywhere I went during the height of the Delta variant, I was very hesitant to see anybody outside of my immediate family, and I even chastised my parents from time to time if their masking wasn’t up to my standards. I believed that during that time, these were necessary precautions.
When the mask-optional policy was instituted at MFS, it was like a switch flipped in my head. I no longer felt gripped by the possibility of contracting the virus. I took the opportunity to remove my mask during school, and it felt like a mental liberation. It was a feeling of, finally, a pre-COVID world is near. I felt as though we were nearing the end of our journey.
But, alas, at the risk of sounding alarmist, here we are again, possibly on the brink of another infectious wave of yet another new variant. I am still optimistic that we’ve borne the brunt of this pandemic, but there may be times where I don my mask again at school as we ease back into our routine after spring break.
My potential shift back to masking brings me to the art of the ebb and flow. We may have to adapt to a society where at times, COVID rears its ugly head to a disruptive degree. This ebb and flow may be our destination. Scientists do not agree on when the virus will, or if it ever will, become endemic. Ira Longini, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, indicated that the virus could become endemic anywhere “between one and 10 years” according to a UF Health article. By contrast, Global Biosecurity Professor Raina MacIntyre warned in a CNBC article that COVID will never become endemic and will instead “always behave like an epidemic virus.”
Maybe our destination is unknown. We will have to rely on emerging science, vaccine immunity, and common sense to continue the fight against this unrelenting virus. There may be periods where risk is high and mitigation will need to be put back in place accordingly, on or off school grounds. This mitigation could very well go back and forth, mask to no mask and back again, and no doubt, it will face scornful opposition followed by sighs of relief.
To definitively answer my original question, yes, we are here. This is our destination, at least for now. At this moment, I am more than willing to see friends and family with no precautions, but I still enter stores with a mask. Inevitably, these habits will change one way or another, and I will pack up my bags and start driving towards the next destination. And the next.
