The Key Distinction That Helps Clarify the Path Forward on the Pandemic

As the Omicron surge recedes, millions of the country’s thrice-vaccinated find themselves wondering if now, finally, is their moment to enjoy life and stop worrying as much about COVID.

Yet more than a thousand Americans are still dying every day. Millions of immunocompromised people remain vulnerable, even if they’ve gotten their shots, and children under the age of 5 still can’t get vaccinated at all. And millions more are vaccine-defiant, putting the nation’s hospitals in crisis mode with each wave. The pandemic is in no way over. So shouldn’t everybody—including vaccinated adults—continue to do their part, observing stringent measures to reduce the chance that they’ll get COVID and spread it to someone else?

This question has, in some ways, become a central fight of the pandemic two years in—at least among the remaining percentage of the country that cares at all. But it is one that is easily resolvable if we think more clearly about how