Where do you feel safe during a COVID-19 spike?

In a dentist’s grip? A barber’s chair? On an airplane? In an airport?

How about a restaurant? Does it count if it is nearly empty?

What about your church — with masks on and no singing?

We all know people who would not think of doing one of these things but would not think twice about another. For instance, the person who cancels on Thanksgiving but goes to a hairstylist. Or the person who will not have coffee with a friend, anywhere, but gets on a plane for a yoga retreat with 20 other people.

And what sense does it make to close schools when gyms and bars stay open? Or to tell weightlifters at the gym, with no one within 20 feet, or runners in a park, with no one within a half-mile, that they must wear masks?

Or to limit the number of people in a workplace, but to fail to do contact tracing after a colleague gets sick? How about swimming laps in a pool? Is that the safest place to be or the least safe?

Well, to quote the great philosopher Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

We are all tremendous hypocrites on COVID-19. And there is more than one good reason.

First, there is still much we don’t know and none of us are sure, week to week, or even day to day, what works. Did Sweden get it right? Or England? Or California? No person or place has outrun or outsmarted the pandemic. Humility should come easy.

Second, we all have hobbies, activities, outlets, passions that mean something to us and it is harder to give up some things than others.

We are calculating and weighing risk against pleasure and joy, and trying to strike the balance that works for each one of us.

We know masks help. But a mask visiting an elderly relative is quite different from a mask on a jog or at a gas station fill-up.

The governor is trying to do what a governor should do: protect public welfare and public health. And good for him. He will continue to take political heat for it.

But each of us must live his or her own life and nothing can or will change that. And none of us can live forever in a bubble or a cave.

There are times when human companionship — a long-delayed conversation, a hug for a lonely loved one, a socially distant gathering of a few friends long isolated from each other and the world — is worth the risk. A life with zero risk is not much of a life.

So if we are hypocrites about our COVID-19 precautions, if we are inconsistent, and we rationalize some choices that fall on the other side of risk, maybe we need to cut ourselves a break.

There is a daily balance to be struck, even if we don’t get it right every day: We want to be safe and we want those we care about to be safe. We want to be human, too.

— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)