You’re making us relive 2020, anti-vaxxers

No one — not a single person — wants to do 2020 again. We all want to put COVID in the past. What’s most frustrating about the current bout of COVID fears is that putting it all behind us is possible. The one thing we desperately yearned for throughout that dark and depressing year is here. Any adult can get a vaccine, and — in Connecticut, at least — most people have. They work, they’re available and they’re free.

But because not everyone is willing to be vaccinated, the pandemic rages on.

Some people aren’t eligible — everyone under 12, for instance. And there are some people who can’t get the vaccine for medical reasons. But the vast majority of adults are eligible. And those who haven’t yet gotten a shot — about 30 percent of the state — have apparently decided they simply don’t want to.

It’s unfair to everyone else. The entire country is paying a price for their lack of interest in public health.

Now we’re back to where we don’t want to be. The CDC is again talking about everyone masking. Requirements for face coverings will likely be instituted in schools and workplaces. People are again getting scared about going out to restaurants.

It bears repeating for people who aren’t getting the message — none of this has to be happening. The minute vaccines became widely available in the spring we could have started moving on. COVID-19 could already be a bad memory at this point.

Instead, the virus has done what we were warned it would do — it’s mutated. The current worry is the delta variant, which apparently is more contagious than previous versions. But we shouldn’t expect this will be the last adaptation the coronavirus makes. And even vaccinated people can spread it to the unvaccinated — another reason, as if any is needed, to get the shot

Future versions could spread even more easily and evade the vaccines. They could be more deadly, or affect more people — maybe even children. There is no way to know for sure what’s next, but we do know the emergency will not end on its own.

For the vaccinated, patience has run thin. We have the capacity to move on with our lives, to get out into the world and live without fear. But because of the vaccine-hesitant — who, again, are much more common in other parts of the country than in Connecticut — we’ve been unable to do so. COVID continues to rule our futures.

What will it take to get everyone on board? We already require a wide array of vaccinations for diseases like measles and chicken pox. We’ll likely reach a point when COVID will take its place on that list. But given the speed at which federal approvals work, we’re not there yet. Despite all evidence showing the COVID vaccines are safe and effective, without a mandate it’s hard to convince everyone to act.

And so we’re back where we started — talking about masks, worried about indoor parties. Many of us considered 2020 the worst year of our lives. Others among us seem determined, for some strange reason, to keep reliving it.

The minute vaccines became widely available in the spring we could have started the process of moving on. COVID-19 could already be a bad memory at this point.