The CDC Is Allowing America to Move Forward

It’s going to be a tough stretch. But it has to happen.

Last week, I wrote about how sports leagues, by essentially changing their protocols for positive tests (and making it easier for asymptomatic vaccinated players to get back on the field by, well, by not testing them), were laying the groundwork for the rest of us. The message was clear: The virus isn’t going away, and, as much as we might not want to, as much as it might hurt after what we’ve all gone through over the last two years, we have to learn to live with it. To quote myself:

The leagues are now admitting what most of us are realizing but wary of saying out loud: COVID is just a part of our lives now, and if we don’t learn to live with it, we’re never going to be able to do anything.

The point of the piece was not to argue that what leagues were doing was necessarily right or necessarily wrong, but that it was probably, well, necessary. And that it sure looked like the future for the rest of us.

That future may already be here.

Monday night, the CDC announced that it is reducing the quarantine period for people who have tested positive for Covid-19 from 10 days to five days. (Masks are recommended after the five-day stretch.) The CDC said it did this because the way…