I made this art for a LitReactor column about whether or not the library will recover from COVID. Short answer: I don’t know. Read and learn more. In the meantime, I have some things to say about COVID and how people are reacting to it. If you’re unvaxxed by choice and refuse to wear a mask, just stop being a scared bitch. If your body can handle the virus, it can handle the vaccine and a little stick. If your grandfather could wear the same pair of combat boots all the way across France, you can wear a mask for 20 minutes in the grocery store. To vaxxed and masked people: you can probably do better. I’m sorry, but if you got on a plane between now and April 2020 for anything other than a necessity (I consider visiting close family a necessity btw) you’ve been spreading shit. If you’ve been dining in, attending events, doing all that sort of shit, I don’t want to be the first person to tell you this, but you’re making things worse. Your choices are spreading this virus, and maybe you don’t worry about killing people because of the availability of vaccines, but I want you to consider that libraries are closing unexpectedly and cancelling events because they don’t have enough healthy staff. This may not sound like a big deal, but if your library closes at 2 pm when it’s 20 degrees outside, it’s a pretty big deal for a lot of folks. Libraries, schools, and other services like these closing is a big problem for people who can’t pay for childcare or don’t have a home or who are generally underserved. We talk a lot about medicine, but consider what happens when the food bank can’t be open, or when the fire department is short handed on the week you need them. Consider that our county has been way behind on plowing because of their staff being out with COVID, and consider that this makes the roads less safe. This is a much bigger deal than long lines at the ski slopes, okay? I just ask that everyone consider that their optional activities have an effect on everyone right now. If you can reduce these sorts of activities a bit longer, you can do something concrete to help the people in your community.