With many communities adjusting their lockdown protocols, I thought it was a good time for some reminders. For those remaining or returning to lockdown, my Covid Information Center is still available, although there may be scientific updates to the medical information. I haven’t updated that since last year, but the recipes and activities should all be useful to those continuing in lockdown. I will do a more extensive update in the next couple of weeks.

Where mask mandates become optional, there is nothing to stop you from wearing a mask to protect yourself and the people around you. My kids have already been told that I expect them to wear masks in school when the changes eventually take effect.

My personal opinion is that many school districts (including my own) are bending over backwards to a small anti-mask contingent. I read an interesting analogy this week on Twitter that stated how we all, parents, teachers, students rallied to follow the exclusion of peanut products in schools because of a very small minority of children with peanut allergies.

None of us minded this small adjustment to our daily school lives in order to protect the vulnerable classmates even though our children were unaffected. This has never been made political. The same attitude should be for masks. Masks conclusively protect us from transmitting and becoming infected with covid. It is a simple precaution. This should not be a disagreement for people who care about the others around them.

I’ve said many times that masks should be part of the dress code for the forseeable future. Regardless of the loud people, we can all do our part to end this pandemic, and the easiest of that is to wear a mask in pubic.

The WHO has provided this graphic with their recommendations.