What It Will Take to Put the Pandemic in the Past

Lawsuit after lawsuit. And there will be more.

It’s happening not only in San Diego where a lawsuit by a parents group has been filed but in other cities and in other states. Lawsuits and threatened lawsuits challenging mask mandates and vaccine mandates at the local, state and federal level. But then since almost when it first began more than a year and a half ago, the coronavirus pandemic has been as contentious as it is contagious.

The early days were marked by some who said the COVID virus was like the flu and it wouldn’t be a big deal. After more than 700-deaths in the last year and a half, there are few who think it’s just a flu.

And then there were battles in legal court and in the court of public opinion over the stay-at-home orders, and business shutdowns and churches shutting doors to the inside. Then there were the battles over masks and now legal fights over the requiring of vaccinations for employees, students, and staff in schools and for travelers.

Going through this pandemic so far has been as much about disagreements as it has been about a disease. And it has damaged relationships as well as lives.

No one knows how long it will take for this still-present pandemic, at least among mostly the unvaccinated, to be in our past. We all can agree that we want to get there but it will probably have to happen without everyone agreeing how to do it.

(Photo Getty Images)