Play by the rules

Chicago’s new vaccine mandate started Monday. Will it make a huge difference to the city’s defenses against the recent surge in the omicron variant of covid-19?

There are arguments on both sides. But we say that the question mostly is irrelevant at this point in a seemingly endless crisis. To argue with the mandate fails to read the needs of the moment.

Whether or not you agree with bars, gyms and restaurants asking you to show your vaccine record at the door, decent people can and should accept that this is not only a minor inconvenience for everybody but also a reasonable decision the city’s leaders have made.

New York, for example, has been doing this for months and the city has still hummed along. So Chicagoans should comply, and do so with courtesy toward the staffers enforcing the rules, if only to help keep the city’s schools open. And kept open they must be. We agree with Mayor Lori Lightfoot when she said in a recent interview that going back to remote learning has a “devastating impact” on the 330,000 young people of this city who count on this system for their education. Especially given the amount of schooling that already has been lost to this crisis.

Here are the truths that present themselves as this city emerges from beneath its collective bed covers to face a new year. The spike in covid-19 cases, due to the rise of the omicron variant, is going to get worse before it gets better. But there is ample evidence that most people, especially young people, who test positive find themselves with moderate cases that do not need hospitalization nor do they threaten life. And it’s similarly clear that those who are vaccinated and have received their booster shots are far more likely to suffer only those milder symptoms.

But we’ve also all learned that this virus is a slippery customer and precautions remain prudent.

Yes, we know the media has a tendency to offer up alarmist headlines about the number of covid-19 cases and the danger of hospitals becoming overwhelmed, a perennial claim that only rarely has come true in a few hard-hit locations. We know that some stories fail to note the relative lack of severity of most cases or the disparity between case numbers and hospitalizations.

But we also hope that the omicron surge will turn out to be the last major gasp of covid-19 and that if we can get through the next few weeks, a much brighter spring and summer on our lakefront will follow. The situation elsewhere in the world suggests that the brunt of this current crisis will only have a duration of a few weeks. This is not forever.