Nearly one year into the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, Texas and Mississippi have announced that they will reopen completely and remove any state restrictions on businesses or mask-wearing.

Some public health officials responded by cautioning against reopening too soon: There are new, highly contagious COVID-19 variants in circulation, and relaxed social interactions might aid transmission enough to create a new surge of cases. Indeed, these are legitimate concerns. But policymaking depends (or should depend) only in part on concerns about COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, there have been other risks to consider, which have often been overlooked or short-changed. All along, there has been general agreement that we should return to normal activities as soon as safely possible, and each day we delay comes with a cost. But there is one other danger to reopening too slowly: betraying the public trust.