For all their benefits protecting individuals against severe Covid, however, vaccines clearly are not a ticket to the end of Covid more broadly. Given that they appear to have waning efficacy after a few months, it is unrealistic to expect that we’ll keep a critical mass of the global population vaccinated and boosted at all times. Remember, Delta and Omicron emerged in India and Africa, not in the parts of America with low vaccination rates.

The fact that Covid will always be with us should not freak people out but sober them up. In March 2020, the rationale behind restrictions was that reckless individual behavior could have catastrophic consequences for the most vulnerable among us. Whatever one’s views on the efficacy of the restrictions that were put in place back then, by Biden’s own admission, we are in a much different place now that so many have been vaccinated. So we should act like it.

Instead, universities and school districts in blue areas are once again suspending in-person schooling, despite the mounting evidence that the closures had devastating consequences for educational outcomes and student mental health. Meanwhile, Biden is asking vaccinated and boosted Americans and even schoolchildren to keep masking indefinitely.