It seems like an eternity ago that everything was shutting down to flatten the curve. But since then state and county officials have used consideration of cases, hospitalizations and deaths to guide their policy responses.

Deaths and hospitalizations are probably the best metric because they indicate how seriously people are actually getting sick and because a run on hospital beds could affect whether or not people get care.

While the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations has been increasing, the public learned recently that many of those cases are incidental, meaning the patient came to the hospital for something else, was tested, and learned he or she had COVID.

The numbers may be accurate in one sense, but they are incredibly misleading without context. As reported by Calmatters last week, “roughly two-thirds of COVID-positive patients at hospitals run by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Services were admitted for something other than the virus. Marin County hospitals on Monday had a near-record high of 19 COVID patients — but at least 42% were incidental cases. And Berkeley is experiencing a ‘phenomenal’ surge in cases, but only three residents at minimum have been hospitalized for COVID-19 in the past month.”

While positive cases are surging, COVID-related hospitalizations are in fact down substantially from a year ago, as are deaths, which suggests that the prevailing variants are less virulent and that vaccines are working at preventing severe outcomes from COVID-19.

Though not without real challenges, we are in much different from times than at the start of the pandemic.

This editorial board has always emphasized personal responsibility throughout the pandemic and over the past year and the importance of vaccinations as a tool to mitigate the harms of COVID-19.

We are fortunately at a point where most people have chosen to be vaccinated and where new, effective treatments are increasingly available.

Hence, governments should be expected to show restraint when it comes to imposing further restrictions from this point on. That’s critical to moving past this devastating period of history and returning to normal.