You can see it all around you.

New businesses are taking their tentative first steps, with more and more storefronts popping up. Restaurants and retail shops are once again hiring workers as demand increases. The CDC is advising that fully vaccinated individuals can resume domestic travel, as long as they continue masking and taking other precautions. Vaccinated grandparents are breaking the internet with their videos and photos of tearful in-person reunions with grandchildren they haven’t been able to hug in a year.

While some of the images may be a little troubling—such as the sold-out crowd at a Texas baseball game or spring breakers partying in large, mostly mask-less crowds in Florida—the overall trend is a promising one.

This is thanks, in large measure, to the continued rollout of vaccines throughout the U.S. As of last Thursday, more than a third of Americans had received at least one vaccine dose, and 19.4 percent have been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers ...