Wow! The CDC has changed the COVID-19 guidelines again. For some of us this may seem like the light at the end of the tunnel. Is it time to start celebrating? Maybe we should step back, take a deep breath, and think about all we have accomplished.

We have managed to figure out much about COVID-19 and have made significant strides to stay safe. If we compare it to how things were early in the pandemic, we certainly should celebrate. We still have more to do, and my wish is that, when we all collectively take a deep breath, we also get rid of the “us against them” dilemma that made dealing with COVID such a mess.

Masking is a great example. For decades doctors and other healthcare providers have worn masks to prevent infecting patients. Recent concern about masks has been not just whether or not they worked; it was being told you were required to mask. It now amounts to choice — if you do not want to mask, okay. If you choose to mask to protect someone, okay, too. If you are in a room with many people and do not want to mask, it is your choice.

Choosing to get vaccinated has kept us safe for years from polio, the flu, tetanus, and other serious infections. The COVID vaccines built on that history. The mRNA vaccines were new, but they were based on decades of vaccine experience and research. Yet somehow the “us against them” machine kicked in again. The choice to receive a COVID vaccine is yours — base that choice on current trusted information, not hearsay and rumor.

Paxlovid is a drug developed to prevent people with mild to moderate COVID from getting seriously ill. Like other drugs we take to prevent or limit disease effects, Paxlovid is effective and safe. However, some people who might take a similar antiviral drug for the flu or for hepatitis have resisted Paxlovid treatment because it deals with COVID.

Let’s look at what happened to me. I felt like I had a sinus problem starting that wasn’t going away. So, I made an appointment to see my doctor. On the morning of my appointment, I noticed a small bump close to my eye and a bump on my forehead. When the doctor examined me, he said I had shingles and advised me to see my eye care professional immediately. He also prescribed medication, which I promptly began to take, to stop the spread. While my wife picked up the medication, I went to the eye doctor, who agreed that shingles had infected my eye, and prescribed steroid drops.

I didn’t stop to question the medications my doctors prescribed. I respected the wisdom of their advice. Because I acted quickly, my very mild case of shingles did not affect my vision. I also didn’t think twice about getting the shingles vaccine, which unfortunately I had not gotten initially as a preventive measure.

This is how treatment for COVID-19 should work; by following your health care professional’s advice, not by second guessing based on what you have heard or seen on social media. By staying away from the “us versus them” misinformation threatening accurate decisions.

My wife and I recently attended a wonderful winter carnival parade in northern New York.

The parade included just about every organization from the town, with people from all walks of life lining the streets in anticipation of this wonderful community event. Before the parade started, a young woman standing near us placed a finger on one side of her nose and proceeded to blow an enormous stream of snot onto the street in front of her. Everyone around us looked shocked and quickly moved away, shaking their heads in disbelief. Our collective disgust intensified when a toddler walking along the street with her mother stumbled and, before anyone could catch her, fell… you guessed it! Talk about disgusting!

Social media posts misadvising how to handle COVID and inflaming the “us versus them” pandemic are just as disgusting. This misinformation is designed to tell us what we might want to believe, or to get us to believe something which benefits no one except, somehow, the misinformation spreader. Some of this information comes from other countries wishing to harm us all, not just our “us or them” neighbors. It is my hope that we take a collective deep breath and do what the people witnessing the disgusting act at the parade did. Our disgust for misinformation should be just as immediate and unanimous as the crowd’s reaction at the parade. When that happens, “us versus them” disappears, and together we choose to keep everyone safe from the disgusting acts that interfere with our wellbeing.

After all, there really is no one but us.

Joe Smith resides in Mill Creek township, is retired from the insurance industry, and serves on a number of nonprofit boards, including Let’s end COVID!, a group of concerned people in Northcentral PA working to overcome the COVID19 pandemic through education, outreach and mitigation.