Colds and the flu roaring back after vanishing during COVID

They’ve arrived just when life seemed good again.

Cold and flu germs, which nearly vanished for two years, are roaring back, according to doctors and federal disease-trackers.

As we do less masking and more hugging and handshaking, “there is greater transmission of viruses,” said Dr. Jorge Salinas, hospital epidemiologist for Stanford Health Care.

To be sure, COVID-19 is still spreading.

But other long-lost ailments are catching up. At schools, “it’s not COVID,” said Salinas. “Everybody has a cough and one thing or another.”

For a long time, masks and social distancing did a bang-up job of protecting us. But now we’ve gotten casual. And we’re all heading back to our regular haunts, rediscovering the kind of liberation that comes with a fully-booked vaccine card.