I’m coming round to the view that many of our kids (and perhaps ourselves) will likely get COVID at some point this year and we’ll ultimately have to get over it and not worry about it any more than we would about them getting flu or mono in college.
S has been at college all summer, doing his internship (which is almost entirely online). Many friends are also there but every one of them is vaccinated. They have been socializing but not in large groups, just going for dinner etc. pretty much as they did last semester pre-vaccination. They mask indoors with people they don’t know, but in fully vaccinated groups they generally don’t.
One friend got a positive test last week (she had an in person internship so a wider circle of contacts), now he has. Both with minor flu like symptoms (he’s still able to work, she was in bed for a couple of days). After his friend tested positive he did multiple tests last week, all negative until today (a week after her test, 10 days after he last saw her, so no clarity on whether she was the source). We’ll see how much further it spreads. But he wouldn’t have tested again today if it hadn’t been for the minor symptoms so I have no idea how many asymptomatic cases are around.
At this point I’m probably most concerned about colleges and schools closing everything down very suddenly and unpredictably, because I expect there’ll be lots of minor or asymptomatic cases amongst vaccinated people over the next month or two and I don’t think people in our state (CA) are prepared to accept that COVID is likely to become an endemic but manageable infection.