We all know how important one’s health is. And when you are lucky enough to reach the age of eighty (God willing, as they say), you want to preserve your health a bit longer.

As we all know, this has been even more than a usual challenge over the past three years because of the Covid epidemic. Over 1,000,000 Americans lost their lives to Covid, most of them over the age of 65. Of course, many of those had other serious health conditions, and many did not take the simple precautions of getting vaccinated.

What we have learned over the course of this pandemic is that we don’t know nearly as much as we would like to, and that the medical world, although its professionals clearly understands the disease better than the normal person, they also don’t know nearly as much as they would like to.

When the pandemic first revved up, we took all sorts of precautions. And we avoided the disease. Is this because we were wearing masks? Is it because we were vaccinated? Because we never got closer than 6 feet to anyone? Or because we spent more time at home and hardly ever went out, and even less often went inside when we went out (why does no one say we were careful not to be inside-out?).

Then things, loosened up, then tightened up, then loosened up again, and now threatens to re-tighten. We (the human race, to be more clear) are confused.

For example, we got the most recent vaccine. Did we need to? Is it helping? Does it protect against the current main variations? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions.

How about masks? Should we still be wearing masks and, if so, when? Walking on the street, going into a store, going to a sports event, a concert, when we are in line at the bank or the post office, when we are with friends or relatives in their houses, or in our houses? I don’t know.

And, speaking of masks, do we still need N95s, or KN94s (or whatever the top quality mask is), or will surgical masks, which are more comfortable, now do the trick? And how long should we wear a mask before throwing it out and putting on a new one? I don’t know.

Should we be 6 feet from people, or 10 feet from people, or right next door? Should we go maskless on public transportation – planes, trains, buses? What about at large events of any kind? I don’t know.

Do I need to be more careful at 80 than I was at 79? I don’t have any idea.

And what about home testing? When should one do that? If you feel sick? If you are going to some sort of event generally? And what about people we associate with? Should we only associate with people who first take home tests? You obviously can’t police that. And as to the tests, we keep hearing about false negatives (or is that false positives?); should we worry about that? I don’t know.

During the time we mainly kept to ourselves, we seemed to avoid many other diseases. Not even any common colds.

Now, it turns out that our immune systems are not performing as well as they should because we have been isolated from germs and viruses that would generally build up our immunity. And if that is the case (and is it?), think what it is for our young grandchildren, who have not until recently been exposed to anything. Are we more likely to get sick this year? And if we are, does trying to avoid being sick make sense, or does it make more sense to get sick, so we won’t get sick some other time? Guess what! I don’t know.

How are we to react to this? Everyone seems to have their own ideas as to how their lives should be lived. Ignore the pathologies, or shelter in place. Wear masks in banks, but not in stores. Eat in restaurants outside….unless it’s too cold or raining. Act conservatively when you are in your home city, but don’t let that stop you from traveling and, as you travel, all bets are off.

We are all confused. And we don’t even know if we are confused because we don’t know enough, or if we are confused because we know too much.