92% of Chile has received vacunas (vaccines) for COVID.  Most people have received four doses.  Everyone’s vaccines are registered into one universal app that you show when you enter a location. Meanwhile, 68% of the United States has their COVID vaccines and we carry around an oddly sized  small piece of paper to prove our vaccination status. 

When you go indoors anywhere in Chile, shopping, work, school or other places masks are mandated.  Masks are not provided but instead they must be purchased and with this they are expensive and there is a street market for masks. 

In our family there has been a lot of banter over finding our mask dealer…

Everyone complies with the mask expectations. There is little to no wearing it below the nose.  And the rules are clear -  cut and dry.  When you go in you mask up.  If a vaccine is available, you get it.  And everything is coordinated and accessible electronically.

No matter your opinion politically or philosophically, we can all agree, the most significant challenge for all of us in the US has been the variety of rules around COVID.  School requires one policy, work another, a restaurant something else. In all honesty, with the work we had to conduct, over the last three summers, around managing the pandemic with Belknap, many times, we dreamt of having someone just provide us with a cut and dry plan.   Every entity in the US has put in so much energy into developing their pandemic management plans.  We shudder to think of the amount of time spent on creating various scenarios,  constantly updating our plans and being asked to make public health decisions for Belknap.

It feels like fewer gray hairs would be on Seth’s beard and Steph’s head if in the US we just agreed to one simple way to manage the pandemic.  So for now, whether we like the exact plan in Chile, we are enjoying our mascarillas for the principle of simplicity.  We know the plan, everyone follows the plan and life is focused on living each day to the fullest.

Disclaimer- Since writing this Chile literally just removed the national mask mandate.