Some parents are questioning whether it is safe to continue to send their kids to camp. Some fear the upcoming school year will be upended by more Covid-19 cases in classrooms than ever before, between a more contagious variant spreading and mitigation measures, such as masks, no longer being implemented in certain schools.

And many vaccinated parents who had put their masks away for quick runs to the grocery store are now back to wearing them, such as Emily Lusardi, of Deerfield, Illinois, who has a 13-year-old son who is vaccinated and a 10-year-old daughter who is not.

Last Thanksgiving, both Lusardi and her daughter had Covid-19. Up until a week or so ago, Lusardi, who got vaccinated in the spring, had mostly stopped worrying that they could catch it again, feeling like the pandemic was trending downward. Now, she cannot wait for vaccines to be approved for children under 12 — something unlikely to happen before wintertime.

“It’s a feeling of sadness, of ‘Ugh — we were almost there,’” she said.