Just taking a moment to say to so many on this thread - we can agree or disagree or see things the same or different - but I still appreciate you all!! 
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We thought my mother was dying in the hospital so, unvaccinated, I went in three days, feeling nervous. Once she was recovering I stopped going in and talk to docs on the phone.
She is going back to assisted living tomorrow with hospice services. Her facility is now allowing visits in the apartments. I am going to try to stick to window visits until I am fully vaccinated (which will be 6 weeks I think) but if she is close to dying I will go inside.
I was going to put myself at risk in this situation but my kids and friends pulled me back. I would give anything to be fully vaccinated right now!
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Seven weeks after my 2nd vaccination, I went out to lunch with my mom (4 weeks post vaccine) and son (10 weeks post vaccine). It was the first time any of us had gone out to eat in over a year. We sat at our outdoor table, masks on, and waited for the menus. After several minutes, my son realized that we were supposed to scan the QR code to view the menu on our phones. The restaurant staff must get a kick out of all of the newly vaccinated newbies that are now venturing out.
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We are super cautious so we haven’t been eating even outside in restaurants and have done only a handful of outside get togethers with friends when numbers were still pretty low. I do see clients, and have been on job sites were there are several people working on renovation projects. Mostly short visits with lots of open windows.
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Once I am fully vaccinated, but not all adults are I will go back to shopping. Took a break while DH was vaccinated and I wasn’t. I won’t eat in a restaurant - scared of variants and even mild to moderate cases. We’ve been eating take out happily and we don’t have to worry about drinking and driving. I will go to the dentist assuming everyone in his office is vaccinated.
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Once all adults are vaccinated I don’t expect routine to change much. Lots will depend on where our numbers are and what happens with the variants. If we get back to last summer’s levels (ca. 25 active cases in our town as opposed to the current 400 or so) I’ll probably do a lot more outdoor socializing. Our neighborhood block party has been rescheduled from June to tentatively September and I would like to think we’ll be able to have it. Especially if condition 4 holds true by then.
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I don’t have kids or grand kids, but I do have friends with kids. I think until they are all vaccinated we will all still be wearing masks and socializing outdoors.
I really don’t know when I will socialize indoors again. But it really will depend on what percentage of the population is vaccinated, what happens with the variants, will there be boosters for the variants? will we have a third surge? Can vaccinated people end up as long haulers if they get a mild case? Lots of questions!
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My hesitancy in dining, either indoor or outdoor, is my reluctance to jeopardize the wait staff. Other diners are presumably there voluntarily but is your wait person? What if fully vaccinated people can still transmit Covid? What if your wait person has been unable to secure a vaccine?
At the same time, that wait person needs your dining dollars and tips. It’s complicated.
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The question about the restaurant (and grocery store) workers may be less of a dilemma if your area put them in an earlier priority group and allowed all of them to get the vaccine before adding the next priority group(s).
On the other hand, if your area did not put them in an earlier priority group, or earlier priority groups had substantial “left behinds” who could not find a vaccine before the next priority group was added, then your concern may be more of an issue.
That’s very strange. It’s a lot less risky for them to be serving a fully vaccinated person than an unvaccinated person. Or would you prefer them not to work because the restaurant has no customers at all?
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I would prefer that people not have to work in an unprotected environment.
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In my city, wait staff are eligible to get vaccines.
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I am fully vaccinated, as of Wednesday of this week.
The local protocols are for mask-wearing & social distancing in public places. I have no problem continuing with that, but I am no longer stressing about the quality of my mask or double masking. Nor do I think I have to launder my cloth masks with the zeal & frequency I had before. (I’m an introvert, so I’ve decided I like the masks & distance – it kind of lets me occupy my inner bubble wherever I go).
Yesterday I went to the grocery store without any sort of preparation or planning. Pre-immunity an in-person grocery trip required careful planning to stock up or replace the things that can’t be provided by my delivery service – now I feel I can go grocery shopping any time I want.
Today I went to the !!! GYM !!!. Yippee!!! They had changes things and moved some equipment around… but I didn’t care. I didn’t feel like I had to spray down and sterilized every piece of equipment before I touched it. I wore my mask – as did other gym goers, but I didn’t scrutinize the others to see whether they were wearing their masks properly.
I feel SAFE. I am assuming that if I am vaccinated AND I am abiding by the masking and social-distancing protocols, then even though theoretically I can catch a mild case of Covid and spread it, the chances of my doing so are vanishingly small.
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I thought this was a good piece on how misinformation leads to misestimation of risk and the resulting effects on policies and behaviors: How misinformation is distorting COVID policies and behaviors
I will definitely eat in a restaurant as soon as servers can be vaccinated. That way I’m not posing a risk to them they can’t avoid. Anyone who chooses to eat in a restaurant is doing so at their own risk. I will continue to mask in grocery stores where there may be unvaccinated people who need to shop for essentials. I am going to get on an airplane and visit my daughter. We haven’t been able to see her for 1.5 years!!!( she is a nurse and fully vaxed)
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We went to a restaurant tonight . the young servers and staff did not seem to care much about wearing masks properly. If I had to guess, many of these 16-22 year olds probably had covid already at some point. The other shocking thing is that its a bit cold for this time of year where I live, and there was this one restaurant we first went to that had a 3 hour wait! for indoor dining. Outdoor had openings. (this was not the place we ended up eating at). I will admit it felt very strange to be in what I considered a crowded restaurant. My husband was ecstatic on the other hand.
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We just got weekend reservations at the Waldorf Monarch Beach for DH’s 64th BD weekend. His fully vaccinated sister and BIL will be joining us. We plan to eat well, drink well, and luxuriate for three days. OMG, for a few days, it’s really going to feel like this is over.
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Fully vaccinated, vernal equinox, dinner out on the bay, tropical cocktail, no dishes to wash…huzzah! Tables were distanced, everyone masked unless seated, our waiter had had his first shot. A fun perk was that we saw the Celebrity Equinox, fully lit, heading out of the harbor as we drove over to the restaurant. Three cruise ships have been stationed offshore since last spring, coming into port occasionally for fuel, food, supplies, and service.
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Wow, you guys sound so adventurous and exciting. I am just happy to have dinner with my mom and dad at their house next week! Haha. Gosh, I may even hug them!
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But they do have to work. No sustainable way around that.
We are on our way back from a family weekend visiting older S. Younger S drove up to join us yesterday. We are 3.5/4 fully vaccinated. Older S is 2.5 weeks past shot 1. Mostly we walked around outside, but we ate several times inside. A couple of the places I would have been ok with unvaccinated. Pretty empty and we were only there ~20 min. (Remember I had to work in a room of unmasked unvaccinated people all day for many months.) A couple of places I would not have gone, though we were still separated as required and the longest we were there was 45 min. In any case, the food was so good. It was a fabulous weekend. Hopefully, we will all stay well.
And our hotel was still pretty empty judging from the parking garage.
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Yesterday I met five fully vaccinated friends for lunch on an outside deck overlooking the bay. (Bali Hai for those in the San Diego area.) It was wonderful to see them, get another yummy tropical cocktail, and everyone had a great time.
Today I went into Home Goods (mostly because I was in the CVS in the same shopping area). All I bought were dish towels and a storage container, but I had a great time walking past all the lovely glass and china and crystal and gleaming displays. There is a 50% capacity limit on shoppers but it wasn’t too busy and easy to keep away from others - mostly. Aisles were marked with direction arrows and people followed them - mostly. Everyone was masked. Carts were wiped down before use.
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Today I met a vaccinated friend at a favorite little Chinatown (Manhattan) restaurant. We ate inside, where tables were arranged as little cubicles with plastic sheeting between, and they had good ventilation inside. The food was amazingly good as was the company, and our tip was extravagant.
A couple of weeks ago I met another vaccinated friend at one of the Brooklyn Chinatowns (the southern end of Sunset Park) on a Sunday and although we didn’t walk many blocks, we could not find a restaurant that was providing table service, inside or out (kind of chilly that day). So we got takeout food and brought it back to my kitchen to eat.
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