Nothing beats Northeast Michigan in the summer.

Well, really, nothing beats Northeast Michigan anytime, but our home truly becomes a magical place when the sun shines, the woods fill with lush green, the wildlife scampers about, and swimmers, boaters, and anglers dot Lake Huron and our many beautiful inland lakes.

And our many festivals help make summer even more magical — including the Michigan Brown Trout Festival.

After coronavirus restrictions forced organizers to scale back the 2020 Brown Trout, organizers announced this week the big tent will return this summer, meaning we’ll once more enjoy all that Brown Trout has to offer.

That’s worth celebrating. Big time. Festivals mean big business for our economy and they simply improve our quality of life.

But the celebration is a fragile thing. As of Tuesday, public health officials had reported 270 newly infected Northeast Michiganders in a week’s time, the biggest weekly total since January.

More and more of us have gotten our vaccination, but we have to keep it up. We have to register for a vaccine, if we haven’t yet, and we have to keep wearing our masks and practicing social distancing until we beat this virus.

If we don’t, the virus could take this summer away from us, too.