For more than a year, the promise has been there.
Pull together. Keep your distance. Wear a mask. Follow the rules.
Do all of this, and the coronavirus pandemic can be handled. Do this, and, eventually, we will be able to stop doing this.
Admittedly, every day the finish line was moved made the faith harder to hold. Two weeks became two months. Spring became summer. Even 2020 became 2021.
And still we were asked to keep pulling together, to keep our distance, to wear our masks and follow the rules. Someday this would be over.
Someday could be just a few weeks away. On Tuesday, Gov. Tom Wolf said many covid-19 responses will be rolled back on Memorial Day. On May 31, capacity limits on restaurants, theaters, indoor and outdoor event spaces and other businesses will be lifted. When 70% of Pennsylvanians older than 18 are fully vaccinated, the masking requirement will go away, too.
That’s a goal within reach. So far, 32.4% of Pennsylvania adults are fully vaccinated and 50% are partway there.
It has been a marathon, not a sprint. It has required more commitment and more strength than people might have hoped — and certainly more loss than anyone was prepared to accept — but with three vaccines in circulation and the announcement adolescents will be approved for the Pfizer BioNTech two-dose shot starting next week, it is finally showing signs of resolution.
What is important is to remember how much of what goes forward is still in the hands of the people.
The government can lift restrictions while still urging caution, but it is up to the people to take that caution. The governor can say masks aren’t required once we reach that vaccinated threshold, but we still need to double the number of fully vaccinated Pennsylvanians to get there — and there are a lot more doses than people clamoring for them right now. It’s absolutely clear getting the vaccine is the most important act for the good of everyone.
It isn’t easy to keep going when everyone is so ready to do all of the things that have been taboo for 14 months. Memorial Day parades, amusement parks, baseball games. A summer of possibilities and relief is within reach, and all of the responsibility and restraint has exhausted us all to the bone.
But the best way to get there is all too familiar: Pull together. Keep your distance. Wear a mask. Follow the rules.
For just a little while longer.
