"COVID-Cautious Americans Feel Abandoned"

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83. I was one of few masked passengers on recent flights

It is indeed difficult to be among those of us who are aware that while most folks want to believe we are done with Covid, Covid is not done with us.

Earlier this month, I flew round-trip from Nevada to Florida to visit my elderly mother. My flight to FL was non-stop; my return trip involved two flights. On all three flights, I wore an N-95 mask, but do not recall seeing more than a couple of other passengers wearing masks. I'm 70 and my wife is 68; neither of us has compromised immune systems or other conditions placing us at heightened risk except for our ages. We go out to restaurants without wearing masks and have also gone to movie theaters three times in the past 12 months unmasked, although we always avoid sitting very close to others. It helps to choose films and show-times that are likely to be draw big crowds. ("The Zone Of Interest" drew only us and one other audience member when we saw it in a theater on Super Bowl Sunday.)

I do most of our grocery shopping and no longer wear a mask there — but I also maintain a respectable distance from other shoppers. If they cough or sneeze, I move away fast.

A good friend of mine in California has a wife with a weakened immune system, so they monitor websites that report location-specific Covid numbers based on hospitalizations and wastewater measurements. He says he knows at least a half-dozen people across a couple of states who have tested positive for Covid within the past year. He also tells me that a few of them presumed incorrectly that they merely had caught a cold or seasonal flu, and thus waited too long before taking a Covid test, which meant that they could not benefit from Paxlovid, which apparently is only effective if administered early. A couple of his friends developed Long Covid, one of whom ended up dying from impaired organ function.