If you follow how Maine has gone from a state doing well to a state leading the COVID spikes you know how dangerous and sneaky COVID can be. We all make individual decisions ranging from staying at home with no socializing to travelling and socializing freely with a range of behaviors in between. COVID fatigue, and willingness to take chances are some of today’s responses to coping with this global pandemic.

How bad does it have to get for us to say we need strong leadership to construct requirements to bring down the very high spikes we see climbing higher and higher?

How about a five-month old baby screaming non-stop and wheezing to breathe because she got COVID from her fully vaccinated parents wearing masks everywhere they went, and who and are totally mystified where the infection came from?

How about our own City Councilor fully vaccinated, wearing a mask still getting COVID?

How about needing the army reserves to assist exhausted hospital staff?

How about our CDC director begging people to voluntarily get vaccines, boosters, to social distance and to wear masks? How about being refused admission to a hospital because of full beds? Or will it take an unnecessary death of someone you love?

Are you freely traveling? Do you sometimes slack off on wearing a mask? Do you socialize with others who think the world is safe enough? Do you take up favorite activities in spite of risks? Do you forget that transmission can and does happen everywhere? How sloppy is too sloppy? What is the price of fun?

What leadership or strong policy might bring our high spikes down? Might we all tolerate a period of time with strong restrictions to ensure our businesses can again become safe and productive? Covid fatigue, impatience and slacking off keep dragging this pandemic out longer and longer.

Should a stronger policy come from the federal, state or local level?

Do we rely on an uneven number of individual businesses and organizations to demand vaccinations and masks? What kind of an emergency is this? How long do we want spotty compliance to be the approach leaving some individuals the freedom to spread the virus? How much more time do we want to give the virus to evolve a new and deadlier variant?

We are all in this together. We are global. Is COVID one big swimming pool where it is OK to let some people pee in only one section of the pool? Can we be stricter than that? I would like us to be stricter so we can act strongly together to bring these spikes down faster.

Connie Hayes lives in Rockland