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The coronavirus may be receding in New York and Toronto and Tel Aviv, but for much of the world it is a more fearsome threat than ever: Fueled by the spread of more-contagious variants and abetted by a profoundly unequal vaccination drive — 85 percent of all doses have been administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries — the pandemic has already killed more people in 2021 than it did in all of 2020. “Trickle-down vaccination is not an effective strategy for fighting a deadly respiratory virus,” the director general of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said last month. “Covid-19 has already cost more than 3.3 million lives and we’re on track for the second year of this pandemic to be far more deadly than the first.” (Spencer Bokat-Lindell, 6/15)

Imagine there is a new contagious illness spreading among children. More than 400 kids in the United States have died from it. Tens of thousands have been hospitalized. Some who only had mild initial symptoms are afflicted with lasting effects such as headaches, heart palpitations, persistent fatigue and inability to concentrate. Many of the affected children were previously healthy, and it’s impossible to predict who will fall ill and who will be spared. We don’t have to imagine any of this, of course. The effects of covid-19 on children have been overshadowed by the much greater impacts on adults. But just because older people are more likely to suffer severe consequences doesn’t mean that the coronavirus isn’t a danger to kids. (Leana S. Wen, 6/15)

As TV news shows debate masks for unvaccinated children and people on social media bang the drum about children being freed from the so-called tyranny of masks in classrooms this fall, we run the risk of overlooking much more important matters for our kids. Let’s be clear: These ludicrous mask arguments are more about the people making them than they are about our children’s well-being. (Kelly Fradin and Hina Talib, 6/15)

Masks. Before March of 2020, most of us had never given them a second thought. Almost no one wore them — what was there to think about? Over the last year and a half, however, they’ve become omnipresent and unavoidable. In California, as everyone’s painfully aware, they’ve been mandated in virtually all public settings for the last 15 months, and across the country they’ve ironically become simultaneous symbols of tyranny (as half the country sees it) and compassion (as seen by the other half). (Tyler Johnson, 6/15)

Many COVID-19 “long haulers” are experiencing immense spiritual struggle. The daily statistics about infections and deaths from COVID-19 do not tell the story of the thousands of individuals and families who are working hard to heal. And while scientists and medical providers are beginning to understand more about long and post-acute COVID-19, they are also seeing the limits of their interventions for some people who are struggling to return to work, reconnect with expectations of family and friends, or just feel like themselves. Spiritual struggle takes the form of isolation, loss of self-worth, estrangement and loss of direction or purpose. (Allison Kestenbaum, 6/14)