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They’ve arrived just when life seemed good again.

Cold and flu germs, which nearly vanished for two years, are roaring back, according to doctors and federal disease-trackers.

As we do less masking and more hugging and handshaking, “there is greater transmission of viruses,” said Dr. Jorge Salinas, hospital epidemiologist for Stanford Health Care.

To be sure, COVID-19 is still spreading.

But other long-lost ailments are catching up. At schools, “it’s not COVID,” said Salinas. “Everybody has a cough and one thing or another.”

For a long time, masks and social distancing did a bang-up job of protecting us. But now we’ve gotten casual. And we’re all heading back to our regular haunts, rediscovering the kind of liberation that comes with a fully-booked vaccine card.