As Coloradans lucky enough to still hold jobs greet their first workday of 2021, joyous chimes are ringing forth from the optimism carillon: vaccines are coming, and normalcy will trail close behind. If we hang in there a few more weeks, the unremitting wretchedness of 2020 should shrink in our rear-view mirror. Bars will throw open their doors, bands will play, and we will once again dance with strangers. We may even feel free to shift our gaze from the risks and inequities that have stained the lives of essential workers.

If you’ve been working from home, you’ve probably been getting more sleep, packed on 10 or 12 quarantine pounds while thoroughly exhausting the Netflix catalog. It will soon be time to return to the gym. Hallelujah!

As much as I may prefer this hopefulness chorus, there are reasons to advise caution. Ample opportunities remain for more things to go wrong. In the week ahead we have the Georgia Senate elections and a senseless squabble over Electoral College ballots. Encouraged by a departing president, who invites thugs to protest and browbeats voting officials, civic mayhem and even deaths can’t be ruled out.

Let’s take a minute and consider the tightrope act Jared Polis is walking. It’s hard to imagine he or the civil servants at the state health department enjoy ever enjoy a full night’s sleep. Just as the governor eased restrictions on restaurants, a more readily transmissible Brit variant of the COVID virus was spotted at a nursing facility in Simla. Across the pond, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been forced to reimpose shutdowns for most of England once this mutation began ripping across England. Polis has chosen to roll the dice in hopes our vaccines can outrace the virus. With zealots whispering, “lock it up” and “re-open the economy” in each ear, that’s a gamble sure to foster anxiety.

None of this has prevented Republican governor-in-waiting George Brauchler from savaging Polis for attending the press event marking the state’s first inoculations. No “setting-an-example” exceptions permitted in Brauchler’s book – just malicious smackdowns at every opportunity. The former prosecutor also suggests state prisoners and county jail residents are expendable, undeserving of protection, and therefore should be dispatched to the rear of the shot queue – no mercy from this tough guy!

If Congress fails to provide more cash to families, economic destitution threatens tens of millions of Americans and will rapidly generate protests of their own. Absent assistance, crime rates will continue to climb. We’re not far from soup kitchens and refugee-style tent cities even here in Colorado. If we navigate these challenges with minimal disruption, we’ll be fortunate. Returning to normalcy as swiftly as possible should be the priority, whatever the inconvenience in the short term. Wear your mask. Slow the spread. Flatten the curve. There is no payoff for public health officers providing this advice.

As far as COVID-19 goes, Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech, who partnered with Pfizer to produce the first FDA approved vaccine warns, “The virus will stay with us for the next 10 years. We need to get used to the fact there’ll be more outbreaks.” It will not simply “go away” one day. We may face annual COVID shots to accompany our flu shots – indefinitely. Colorado’s health system will be confronted with periodic capacity assaults. Other more dangerous pathogens may emerge. The future demands a government that can remain vigilant, responsive and, perhaps, more expensive.

Politically, we must come to terms with a choice between the democratic principle that the best government is one in which the most people vote, and a competing, dare I say elitist, view that the best government is one in which only the right people vote. Colorado has opted, I suspect irreversibly, in favor of maximum participation. Nationally, however, this debate will continue. Elitists, masquerading as populists, rely on voter suppression and gerrymandering to undermine majority rule. Compromise, which rests at the heart of democratic process, is disdained as a marker of conspiracy. Accepting elections result, even when one disagrees with the majority, is integral to the democratic bargain. Any alternative promises tyranny.

States are the laboratories of democracy and this pandemic has exposed there is much lab work to complete. Every resident with a job deserves a living wage. Colorado voters got a jump on this a few years ago by approving minimum wage indexing. The health of each of us depends on the health of all of us. A safeguard has to be designed guaranteeing universal access to medical care. Affordable housing is necessary for a satisfactory quality of life. Urban centers should subsidize our rural communities. Broadband “red lines” must be eradicated. We need to get started. There’s lots to be done at the legislature and no better time than the present to do it.