Everyone’s Getting Sick Again

[cough] [cough] [sneeze]

I have spent the last four days absolutely waylaid with a head cold. It’s one of those head colds that isn’t debilitating —I’ve been working as usual, and going about my business as if nothing is happening — but boy oh boy is it annoying. I’m blowing my nose constantly, I’m waking up in the middle of night with congestion, I’m in a perpetual state of sniffle. I’ve got a cold. I’ve got a full-on cold.

Can I say that I kind of missed it?

This is my first cold since the fall of 2019. I can actually track it back that far — I remember, because I’d just gotten over it in time for Thanksgiving that year. It has been three years since I had a cold. Three years! I’ve had to bring out all the old big guns: Mucinex, Sudafed, I even went nuclear one night and revved up the Severe Strength Nyquil, which knocked me out so much that both my children had to hit me with a polo mallet just to wake me up the next morning. It felt like a throwback. It felt like revisiting an old friend.

The reason, of course, is that for me, like for many people, the pandemic brought along the best run of health I’ve had in my entire life. And why wouldn’t it? We’ve all spend less time around other people than we ever have, we’re all wearing masks, we’ve all been using hand sanitizer and been hyper-aware of germs. The result has been less communicable disease: Fewer colds, fewer flus (the 2020–21 flu season was the lowest in decades), fewer everything. To avoid getting Covid-19, we ended up avoiding all the things that usually get us sick.

But everybody’s back now. Whether or not you believe the pandemic is “over” — as the President got in a bit of trouble for (kind of) saying last week — it is undeniable that most of the country, and really most of the world, has officially gone back to normal. There are still smatterings of people wearing masks, and Covid-19 cases have certainly not vanished. (Let this be your reminder to get your booster.) But on the whole: People are back to normal. Movie theaters are making money; restaurants are booming; sports arenas are packed. Masks — for better or worse — are the exception now. People are back in full force.

And thus people are getting sick again. (My mom told me mass on Sunday was nothing but…