These days, photographs of people at a party all sitting and laughing together make us: 1. nostalgic, if the pictures are from last year; or 2. apprehensive, if they are people we know and if the event was held recently.

Yes, COVID-19 is surging again across the United States, and cases continue to increase locally. No area is immune. Both Gloucester and Mathews counties have now recorded deaths from COVID, according to the Virginia Department of Health.

Of course, we are all sick of reading about COVID, living through COVID, and trying to do business around the effects of COVID.

The news on the vaccination front is encouraging; however, it will still be months, not days or weeks, before the vaccine is available to the majority of the population. There is no set date that the world will be able to go back to “normal” (or something close to it).

In the meantime it is in your interest, and in the interest of the people you live, work, worship, study and play with, to take pr...