Over the past couple of years, COVID has affected almost every part of people’s daily lives.  

After the world was put on pause in 2020, people have had to learn how to socially distance and wear masks.

At this point, it would be more beneficial to the public if everyone accepted COVID and the precautions used to ward it off as a part of the new normal. 

Not only would accepting COVID help the world get back to a sense of normalcy, but it would also help slow the spread of the virus and get the world back to an open and safe environment. 

Because of the constant influx of new information, our daily norms are constantly having to change to keep up with the variating virus.

Rather than trying to stop the virus in its tracks, wouldn’t it be more effective to take measures that actively fight and prevent the spread of it by using vaccines to gain herd immunity? 

After all, COVID is another virus, which the world has gone through before. 

Many people want the world to return back to the way it is was before the pandemic started. But that is not going to happen. It is just a fact of the matter that life is different now. 

Not accepting the reality of this virus is hurting more than it is helping the people in the world. While trying to downplay and brush off these new precautions and new norms, people are only causing the virus to spread more as it gets exposed to more potential hosts. 

Our society has to face the fact that COVID is here to stay. We are unlikely to see much change as the pandemic started two years ago.

Even if COVID is a temporary pandemic to the world, the faster people adhere to these norms and accept them as a part of their daily lives, the faster the world can overcome and get back to its previous, more open state. 

According to the CDC, the combination of vaccines and masks are our best weapon against COVID. 

Accepting these preventative norms as normal and permanent could very possibly help limit the spread of COVID and help the world get over this pandemic and move on with the future. 

The more fighting and pushing people do against these measures, the more the virus pushes and fights back. 

Hence, the recent overwhelming outbreaks of the new COVID variants that have been so intense due to the lack of community mask wearing and herd immunity. 

Taking this virus and its preventative measures in as the new normal may help get everyone back to the social, bustling life they once had. 

Even if this pandemic doesn’t last forever, it is happening now, and the world should work to overcome it as they would any other virus.       This means taking in the guidelines and new norms to heart and allowing them to become normal.