It’s time to get impatient about lingering COVID lockdowns

At this point, almost all closures, lockdowns, mask mandates, and social distancing rules are unnecessary cruelty. The main cause of these cruelly lingering rules is bureaucratic stubbornness at the government level. If your left-wing bookstore in Cambridge wants to require masks until Kamala Harris’s inauguration, that’s its business, of course. It might even be good business: The target clientele might feel safer knowing that no "Neanderthals" who resent pointless government rules will be browsing the shelves. But many mom-and-pop shops, neighborhood pools, and local summer camps are imposing draconian mandates because they get stale, conflicting, and overly cautious guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from their state health departments, and from their local health officers.