Saddest of all, masks are still required at nursing homes, so the elderly, in their golden years, continue to be deprived of facial cues and the comfort of smiles, whether they like it or not. This means countless older adults with hearing loss, dementia and other age-related limitations have been forced to live in a faceless, isolated, masked world for nearly three years now; there’s no reason whatsoever it should be that long, yet they have little power to effect change.

The US Travel Association is now pressing the Administration and Congress to end the travel ban. While the lobby’s focus last year had primarily been on reducing visa wait times, its focus quickly shifted to prioritizing ending covid restrictions following the PHE announcement. CEO Geoff Freeman strongly questioned Biden’s decision to end the emergency in May: “but why wait til [sic] May? We have the power right now to remove this requirement to bring travelers back into the country.”