Over the past year, we have had to make all kinds of adjustments to our everyday lives to combat a deadly pandemic. And all over the country, fully vaccinated people needlessly wear masks outdoors. All over the country, people remain too reluctant to meet friends, to see acquaintances, or to take that business lunch. All over the country, schools continue to close for 'deep cleaning' even though the coronavirus rarely, or never, transmits by touch. That we must do what we can to preserve it.ДЄnd yet, I fear that-like many of my friends and colleagues-she has, over the past months, become too attached to aspects of hygiene theater that ultimately do more to reassure us or to showcase our altruism than to combat the pandemic. We both believe that the pandemic is deadly serious. So we are part of the same tribe, that hostess and I. Even now, I think that the federal government should do more to make it easy for Americans to get the vaccine, to help distribute it to the neediest countries around the world, and to monitor the potential emergence of dangerous variants. And the situation is even more dire in many countries around the world, from Brazil to India.ДЄt the beginning of the pandemic, when both ordinary people and key decision-makers were far too reluctant to cancel big events or tell office workers to work from home, I strongly advocated a more radical containment strategy: my article, with the provocative headline ' Cancel Everything,' trended on Twitter. As I write these lines, thousands of Americans are fighting for their lives in ICUs all over the country. We are still living through the worst pandemic in over a century. I understand where our hostess was coming from. And in the strange and pointless ritual that has become commonplace inside restaurants over the past months, we were dutifully wearing masks when we entered the restaurant, only to take them off the moment we sat down at our table. (The CDC guidelines, in fact, went into effect immediately. 'In any case,' she said bitterly, 'the CDC guidance doesn't go into effect until Sunday.' Then she wordlessly showed us to our table. 'But it's incredibly unlikely,' my friend responded. 'You can still pass on Covid when you are vaccinated,' she said. The hostess, a young woman who looked like she reads all the right newspapers and magazines, rolled her eyes at us.

The pandemic is over!' one of them joked, referring to Thursday's surprising announcement by the CDC that fully vaccinated people could now drop most pandemic-related precautions.

Since it had gotten a little chilly, and we are all fully vaccinated, we decided, on the spur of the moment, to dine indoors. Yesterday evening, I went out to dinner with a few friends.

Take off the mask