Light at the End of the Tunnel
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Making our Next Steps Helpful
Last Thursday the CDC made one of the announcements that many of us have been waiting for, that the country has reached a level of vaccination that will allow fully vaccinated people to go maskless in most situations. I don’t know about you, but I listened to that news several times before it really sunk in for me. As the president pointed out, this announcement marks a milestone in the pandemic that we only reached because so many people have opted to get the shots to protect themselves and others. Hopefully more will follow. Now that people aged 12 and up are eligible to get the shot, our nation’s percentage of vaccinated people will only go up. As someone with friends and loved ones who cannot be vaccinated, the actions of so many people are protecting them, and I thank you. If you are reading this and cannot be vaccinated, please know that I pray for you and your safety daily. The same is true for those of you with young children who cannot yet be vaccinated.
Now we are at a point where decisions need to be made. How will we proceed? Though some of us have been encouraged to resume a certain level of normalcy, the pandemic is not “over,” not in our country and certainly not in the rest of the world. If you have loved ones at home who can’t get the shot, or if you work with at-risk populations, the CDC’s announcement might raise questions about the best way forward.
Whether you see this news as a long-awaited light at the end of the tunnel, or just something else to figure out how to navigate in a year of figuring out how to navigate new things, I hope that we can make our next steps helpful to our neighbors: our immunocompromised neighbor, our young neighbor, our vaccine-hesitant neighbor, our worried neighbor, our global neighbor. The lessons of the past year have shown a bright light on the fact that we are not all in “the same boat,” as the pandemic has affected different people and populations in vastly different ways. But, all of our boats are in the same storm. And when that is the case, the way to safety is found by working together, without judgment, for the good of all.
Blessings to Each of You,
Derek Roe
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