Long COVID takes different forms in different people. As a faculty member who is only now recovering from Long COVID symptoms that I’ve had for almost a year, I can assure you that all of these forms are unpleasant.

The move comes as St. Louis city and county became some of the first local governments in the nation to bring back mask mandates for indoor public spaces.

Yet despite the astounding death toll, despite the many people who now have an empty seat at their dinner tables, despite those who have lost their homes as the virus has made them financially unstable, there are still those like the woman in the TikTok video who abhor the thought of wearing a mask.

As we near the midpoint of this semester, with very low numbers of active cases, we want to say thank you for doing your part in keeping us safe.

It only makes sense that Americans should normalize wearing a mask when you are sick, even beyond the setting of a pandemic.