Wear the mask and get the shot for Team Chicago

Apitfall of email is that the tone of a message can be misunderstood. Friendly advice can come off as scolding. That’s why people throw in smiley faces.

The same goes with editorials, we have found, so please take this advice in the positive, though urgent, tone intended: Everybody should follow the City of Chicago’s new rules on wearing masks indoors as if somebody’s life depended on it. Because somebody’s life might.

And, while we’re at it, here’s a second piece of constructive advice:

If you’re an elected official in this town, such as an alderman, get vaccinated if you have not. And let everybody know you got vaccinated. Lead by example.

No sooner did the city of Chicago this past week lay down a rule that everybody — even the fully vaccinated — must again wear masks when indoors in public than skeptics questioned how the city could possibly enforce the rule. City officials warned that businesses that fail to enforce the mandate could be fined, but recent history has shown the city is loath to get tough in that way. City Hall wants to be anti-COVID without being anti-business.

As a practical matter, beating the pandemic always has been — and always will be — more about voluntary compliance with the rules of vaccines, masks and social distancing.

We urge you, then, to listen to your better angels, follow the new rule on masks and, if you have not, get the darn vaccine.

It is the only way to slow and defeat the new and highly contagious Delta variant of the surging coronavirus. It is the only way Chicago will ever get back to normal. It is the only way children will be able to return to in-person learning come Aug. 30.

The mask mandate is no more a violation of our civil liberties than a law that says we can’t drive the wrong way down a one-way street. The vaccine is safe and powerfully effective. Even vaccinated people who then catch the bug typically experience only mild COVID-19 symptoms and fully recover.

The science is overwhelming. Trust it. And, with new COVID-19 cases in Chicago running higher than 400 a day again, hospital intensive care units are filling up again with the unvaccinated.

As for those relatively few aldermen who remain unvaccinated — no more than 7 of the 50, by WBEZ’s count — step up. Get the shot and tell the world.

Your city needs you.