Bret Devereaux

So I'm looking at the COVID mask rules at UNC where I'm going to be teaching in the fall and I think they seem sensible. I resolved at the beginning of this that I wanted to act in a way that I could know I never put someone else at risk through recklessness.

But I'll admit that I'm frustrated and disappointed that we are going to be mostly back to wearing masks all of the time because one thing that made me so excited about the vaccine was being able to not do that. But it seems like the problem is too many folks are unvaccinated.

In a country where most people are now fully vaccinated, anywhere from 94 to 99.9% of current cases are among the unvaccinated *minority* rather than the vaccinated *majority.* And those cases are more mild. The vaccine works people!

Once again I can't help but feeling like we're looking at policy failure arising out of a failure to understand people and to communicate effectively with the public - the core strengths of the humanities we've been under-funding for decades.

So all in all, I am disappointed that substandard vaccination rates means that I'll have to lecture where I can't see my student's smiles (because of the masks). That is a tiny disappointment compared to the people who are going to lose loved ones.

I have a healthy immune system, so I can get my vaccine and be extremely safe from COVID, even delta. But quite a lot of people are immuno-compromised and won't be as safe. But I think new masking rules are going to be very hard to enforce.

Anyway, we should do vaccine mandates. For students, for workers, for everyone. The time for asking politely was May and June. Make it free (it is) and then require it (and make employers give paid time off to go get it). Then we can all get back to normal.