It’s easy to imagine that people across the state and nation were glad to hear the news last week that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifted mask restrictions for people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

For many, the 14 months of attempting to communicate with others through a piece of fabric covering one’s mouth has come to an end.

Under the new guidelines, fully vaccinated people can stop wearing masks in crowds and most indoor settings, although it is still called for in buses, planes, hospitals and prisons. It’s also recommended that vaccinated people continue to wear masks when in the presence of the unvaccinated.

People who have not received their shots — or who have no intention of doing so — are still asked to wear a mask.

That sounds great on paper, but its success will rely on people’s honesty and the enforcement of rules. In other words, set your expectations low.

Whether you choose to get vaccinated is your business. Nobody is going to force you, and there are some with good reasons not to get one, such as severe allergic reactions.

However, your choices can affect others, so if you’re not getting vaccinated, please continue to follow mask-wearing protocols.

Meanwhile, the CDC recommends that schools continue to implement COVID-19 health guidelines — mask-wearing and social distancing — through the end of the school year. Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of education concurred with this recommendation.

Vaccines are still not authorized for children by the Food and Drug Administration, so many youths will not be vaccinated for the foreseeable future. On the one hand, severe cases of COVID-19 in children have been largely uncommon. On the other, they can transmit the virus to older family members, who are in greater danger if they catch it.

So, while it might make sense for students to continue wearing masks while crowded together in school buildings — at least until the number of vaccinated Pennsylvanians reaches a peak considered safe by health officials — it would, perhaps, be beneficial to allow them to remove them while engaged in activity outdoors, where transmission rates have been found to be greatly reduced.

Whether we’re talking about adults at work or students in school, a sense of normalcy is slowly returning. Wearing masks has likely become tiresome for most — but if we continue doing the right thing, the quicker this whole episode will be over.

— NCD