WASHINGTON — On Saturday, the District re-instituted its mask mandate for people indoors, regardless of vaccination status.
It came on the heels of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issuing new guidance, recommending all people wear masks indoors in areas of substantial or higher transmission of COVID-19.
Hospitals are currently surging with unvaccinated people who are sick with the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus.
Hear me out.
The solution to beating the pandemic is simple: Get the shot.
We've seen data from the CDC that shows how effective the vaccines are against the virus, including the Delta variant.
Yes, you might catch the virus, but the CDC, and experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, say the vaccines are working the way they're supposed to.
"If you do get infected, the likelihood of you getting a severe outcome of the infection is very low," Dr. Fauci said recently. "It is much more likely that you will either be without symptoms or minimally symptomatic."
And yet, less than half the population is fully vaccinated.
On Sunday, the Washington Football Team added their seventh member of the team to their reserve-COVID list. We don't know how many, if any, of the players have tested positive, but we do know the team has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the league.
If it feels like we're taking a big step back, it's because we are. The return of mask mandates was a totally avoidable outcome if everybody listened to health experts and got vaccinated.
Every day you read or watch the news, there's a new story about someone in the hospital seriously sick who wishes they had gotten the vaccine.
If nothing else will, let that convince you to get the shot. We can get to where we want to be, back to normal, if we all get vaccinated.