Our Best Hope

At a time when half of the country is always pointing a finger at the other half, for one reason or another, let’s acknowledge that we’re all guilty of one thing: All of us — Republicans and Democrats, young and old, vaccinated and unvaccinated, and everyone in between — thought we were in the homestretch with COVID-19. With only a few people as the rarest exception, we prematurely declared victory, tossed away the masks and rushed back to “normal.”

It was foolhardy. With the delta variant of the virus being even more contagious, the act of dropping our collective guard gave it a new chance to surge, even locally, where vaccination rates are healthy and people are willing to observe social distancing and masking. It was summer, and we thought we were safe. We were wrong.

The problem now is confusion. Is the threat of breakthrough infection enough that even the vaccinated should go back to a greater level of caution? Should we all be wearing masks indoors again? Perhaps even in crowds outdoors?

Unfortunately, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn’t been the paragon of clear, concise guidance that was needed through this health crisis. The CDC’s advice on masks has always been filtered through an economic lens, through two administrations, instead of being strictly medical advice. Even today, the guidance on which communities should be masking is vague enough to be confusing state and local officials — not to mention the business owners who are on the front lines, trying to enforce policies that nobody has clearly set.

New York State officials have said they will allow local governments to make their own decisions. That’s fine, but it’s unfair to expect local men and women to act without adequate information. We need to separate “mandates” from “guidance” — if the CDC won’t provide a clear enough picture to allow these decisions to be made at the local level, the state must fill the void.

And a good reason to keep those decisions local, even as the guidance comes from the state, is that the South Fork is not New York City, and neither is an upstate small town. Even Suffolk County isn’t small enough for sweeping rules: If you’re in Riverhead, at a busy big-box store, it’s clearly not the same as visiting a local shop in Sag Harbor or Westhampton Beach. Restaurants aren’t the same as grocery stores.

Meanwhile, the patchwork of towns and villages means the risk of even more confusion if the policies differ. And when the rules are different, even from business to business, it causes confusion, and friction, when nobody understands why.

It’s time to help the business owners on the front line, who have choices to make and will face the fallout of public reaction. Perhaps the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association can take up the idea of a regional policy — not necessarily a mandate, just guidance for where and when masking would be required of both the unvaccinated and the vaccinated. Stores can decide from there, but at least they can point to the reasoning behind the choice, and can nod to neighboring shops that are following suit.

Ultimately, though, the politicization of both vaccinations and masking is a sorry fact of life: Many people refuse both precisely because they’re being ordered to do it. So the best hope we may have is the spirit of community that infuses the South Fork, where people are demonstrably more willing to help neighbors, and strangers, and consider their needs as well as our own. That might be our best weapon in the ongoing battle against COVID — a spirit of neighborliness, which suggests taking greater steps than might be required, voluntarily.

And we have to remember: It ain’t over till it’s over.