Masks Are Back, Maybe for the Long Term

It certainly feels like we’ve been here before. Nationally, coronavirus case numbers are the highest they’ve been since the start of 2021. Hospitalization rates are on a roaring upswing in nearly every state. Young kids—many of them still ineligible for immunization—are gearing up for another pandemic school year. And even while SARS-CoV-2 continues to shape-shift, we’re struggling to get more shots into arms. The summer is starting to feel a lot like the long, hard winter many people were sure they’d left behind.

Last week, the CDC played what probably seemed like one of the most obvious cards left in its hand: asking fully vaccinated people to , . This recommendation echoed one the agency had —and has clearly saddled immunized Americans with a serious case of masking déjà vu. “It’s been an abrupt 180,” Helen Chu, an infectious-disease physician and epidemiologist at the University of Washington, told me, and for many people, “that’s made it difficult.”