I confess: The sports world hasn’t been at the top of my mind recently.

Instead I’ve been absorbed in Thomas the Tank Engine, word and picture seek-and-finds and memorizing the soundtracks to both “Frozen” films.

In a way, though, I have been focused on sports — by lamenting the end of the Olympics and the expansive coverage that allowed me a break from hearing “Let It Go” one more time.

When my fully vaccinated husband tested positive for COVID-19 after what he recalls as very brief exposure to a carrier (who didn’t seem aware of it), it threw our small family — our toddler daughter, him and me — for a loop for 10 days. That’s the minimum length of isolation the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise from the onset of symptoms, assuming the patient feels completely fine after that period. We added a couple more days after that, just to make completely sure.

Our daughter and I both tested negative, thankfully. (I’m also fully vaccinated; she is too young.) I do still check that I can smell and taste my toothpaste every morning just to be certain.

Chasing around our wild child became my second full-time job, meaning there wasn’t much time to do anything except focus on her, my salary-paying job and keeping up our little household. My husband and my dad helped as much as they could, but by the end of the day all I could concentrate on was what the next 24 hours would bring.

This isn’t a lament; I know that despite the situation we were still quite fortunate regarding the balance between work and child care. Many, many parents out there have tougher situations that don’t expire after a federally recommended 10 days.

What I really hope to express is a plea, which likely won’t sit well with some, to take this COVID-19 surge seriously: Get vaccinated, follow health and safety guidelines, don’t let down your guard just yet — remember, my husband got his full vaccine course and still registered a breakthrough infection.

How does this tie into sports? Well, when we finally ventured out, masks on, to a well-ventilated restaurant for lunch, I caught a glimpse on the television of Citi Field in Queens, N.Y., and fans moving about during a game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets.

Escalators and stadium aisles were packed with unmasked attendees, and I cringed. How many were vaccinated? How many were silently ill? Will this lead to a localized surge in cases, to heap onto the nationwide explosion?

Whether you head to a high school game, a University of Hawaii game or your child’s youth soccer game, all that is asked is that you maintain vigilance in keeping the coronavirus at bay. There’s no shame in wearing a mask and keeping just a little bit of distance, even if you are fully vaccinated.

Here it’s useful to bring up “Frozen” after all. In the second film, the message during a dire situation is to “do the next right thing”: forge ahead even when it seems like you have no other options.

We’ve glimpsed the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel before, only to be stymied by variants and disinformation and the overwhelming desire to resume some kind of pre-pandemic normalcy. If we now break it down to the next right thing — taking one step at a time, learning from the past to push forward — hopefully we’ll reach the light again before long.