A year ago COVID-19 was hammering health care workers, closing schools, stopping sporting events and other large group gatherings.

Six months ago, thanks largely to the vaccines that were becoming increasingly available, COVID numbers were dropping and people were looking at leaving masks at home and getting out and around other people.

But now, thanks to the delta variant and the more recent omicron variant, COVID has staged a big comeback. Hospitals are full of infected patients, the NFL, NBA and NHL are postponing games as players and coaches test positive, and it is expected that today the NHL will announce it won’t allow its players to participate in the Winter Olympics in Beijing to avoid risk of further disruption.

Have we become complacent? Are we just unwilling to put the masks back on? We all want to avoid the business shutdowns that were ordered, because that was the only recourse we had.

Today we have vaccines, which may not stand in the way of omicron and delta variants as they did against the original virus, but they are effective in keeping people out of hospitals and ICUs. At this time, they are the best recourse we have to fight COVID.