[Why health?]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced fully vaccinated people need no longer wear a mask or physically distance to prevent the spread of covid-19 (with the exception of places where such measures remain required by law). The unexpected announcement does present an opportunity to interrogate why we have done what we have done during the pandemic, and what we want, or perhaps should want, to guide our decision-making during these times. The key question is "what is health for?". Also, covid-19 confronted us with a question which engages directly with this issue of tradeoffs and balance: what are we willing to give up in order to get to health? How we respond depends on how we define health. Health could be better defined as an activity capable of balancing risk mitigation with the reasonable risk inherent in the pursuit of a full life, with health seen as a means to live a fulfilling life. If we truly believe that health matters, our pursuit of it should reflect the understanding that we do not live to be healthy: we aspire to be healthy so we can live.