To mask or not to mask

   I still carry a mask in my car and in my pocket but now I find myself evaluating if I want to wear the mask when I go into a store.  If it is a crowded Saturday I might put on a mask.  If it is a late evening when the store won't be crowded and I am only picking up a few things I might go maskless.  More and more I see less mask-wearing even in Columbia where we have been better at wearing a mask.

   As we learn more about COVID we have to factor in information that constantly has to be adjusted.  Did the lockdowns only prolong the pandemic as it attempted to protect vulnerable people?  The natural immunity developed by unvaccinated people may be the reason that the new variants seem to be less dangerous.  The unvaccinated vulnerable people may have paid a heavy cost but they may have paved a way for this virus to move to a milder form and moved us past needed to do another lockdown.

    I have to say that I no longer have much concern about COVID.  I am comfortable traveling and eating in a restaurant.  I am thankful that the vaccines and post-vaccine exposures have protected me from a serious illness.  I now feel that riding in a car is now a more dangerous situation than exposure to COVID.  That has always probably been the case but now I feel it more.

    One lesson that I have learned from experiencing a pandemic is that our Country has such an anti-government segment that nothing short of another country attacking us will ever unite us.  We can thank Ronald Reagan and his Republican followers for forty years of attacks on anything the government tries to do.  When protecting the health of our population becomes controversial we are all on our own.