Based on my (admittedly) anectdotal evidence: there's been very little mask wearing for almost a year, and in that time a very large percentage of the people I've known have gotten various colds and/or COVID. (This summer, it seems almost everyone who hadn't had it yet, finally got it.)
The big shift happened when they lifted the mask mandate for schools here in early 2022: Our kids came back with a cold every 2 weeks, for approximately 2.5 months. That was not fun.
All of which is to say that it's not clear at all that we've been "storing up" a problem -- and if we have, much of it has already been let out of storage, so to speak.
The big shift happened when they lifted the mask mandate for schools here in early 2022: Our kids came back with a cold every 2 weeks, for approximately 2.5 months. That was not fun.
All of which is to say that it's not clear at all that we've been "storing up" a problem -- and if we have, much of it has already been let out of storage, so to speak.