Editorial: As a matter of compassion and public health, let's accept that masks will be with us for a while yet

Yes, it appears masks are back, or will be soon, and again we confront a question that has dogged us for a year and a half: Must compassion be so divisive?

We know, or ought to know by now, the bottom line on masks. They are fundamental to protecting oneself from contracting COVID-19. They are just as important for protecting others, and likely are necessary even if the wearer has been fully vaccinated.

And, everyone can read the numbers. Since masking regulations were relaxed, coinciding with a surge of the delta variant of COVID-19, case numbers, infection rates, hospitalizations and intensive care cases have exploded to levels not seen since the previous peak of the COVID-19 crisis.

Considering these indisputable factors, how can responsible decision-makers not begin considering reimposing mask mandates like those outlined Wednesday by Gov. J.B. Pritzker?

It's a minimum requirement not just for protecting individuals themselves but more importantly for protecting all of society.

Yet, we can see the anger and frustration boiling over in school, government and business settings. It's a shame. For, the conclusion could not be more clear: If we want to stop wearing masks anytime soon, we need to be wearing them now.

Again.

Or, still, as the case may be.

Throughout the pandemic, we have lamented in this space the fact that preventive measures like masks and vaccines have become political issues. Coming on the heels of a brief respite, the renewed pressure for protections is understandably frustrating, but seems only to threaten expanding those partisan divides.

But health is not a political issue. Disease has no regard for right, left or middle points of view. So, regardless of our politics, how about we all take a deep breath, think about others and just make health and safety the priorities of our thinking?

Actually, if we would all do that, we wouldn't need government edicts or restrictions at businesses and entertainment venues. We would do it on our own, out of simple compassion.

Questions involving children at schools may seem a little isolated, because children themselves are not generally in serious danger from the virus. But children do get sick and die from the disease - nearly 17,000 of them hospitalized and 350 killed, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. And we mustn't overlook that children certainly can spread it around among each other, and thus each other's households, and to their adult teachers.

Indeed, infection models often show that not only are schools important sites to consider for restrictions during a pandemic, they are high-priority locations because of the ways children interact with each other and the close quarters in which they are held.

To be sure, we don't want a return for kids to all-remote learning, whose drawbacks are well documented. Nor, for adults, do we want to see restaurants and theaters shuttered again or renewed pressures on exhausted health-care and other front-line workers trying to stave off further tragedies that so far have exceeded 614,000 nationwide.

Let's bow to reality. The pandemic is not over. We can manage for the time being without lockdowns or other extreme measures, but, unnerving as it is, masks are going to be with us at public situations indoors for some time to come. Further, everyone who aims to be out in public should get vaccinated.

These are not such onerous prospects, even were they only for one's self protection. When they are acts of compassion and public welfare, they are both unifying and warranted.