Fenway Park is my local stadium. I’ve never been there when it wasn’t packed, often with screaming fans. It is not a dome. Haven’t been to Foxboro in a few years, but the games used to be packed. I actually prefer watching on TV to attending the games in person in Foxboro.
Mariners 8-2 Red Sox (Apr 24, 2021) Final Score - ESPN says that Fenway Park was only about 12% full in a recent game, but this may be due to a COVID-19-based limit.
Next week I (fully vaccinated) and a friend (fully vaccinated) are driving together to see a friend who recently had surgery (who is also fully vaccinated).
We haven’t seen these folks since December 2019.
The day we chose…so far…it’s supposed to be 80 degrees. I’m picking up a picnic lunch from Panera. We three are so excited about this!
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H is out donating blood as I type, and in the process will see if he has antibodies like I do. I hope so. It certainly gives us more confidence that everything went right with our vaxes.
We donate fairly regularly and have been negative up until getting vaxed.
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At present the limit in MA for sports venues is in fact 12%. So that Mariners-Sox game was technically a sellout. Celtics and Bruins also at 12%.
I would expect that by the time the Patriots start play in late August, the MA limit will be much higher.
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My husband and I who are now vaccinated are visiting his sister and her husband today who are also now vaccinated. We are bringing them their Christmas gifts (been in my closet all wrapped and ready to go since mid-December)
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Are you comfortable eating inside at a restaurant? I can see eating outside but how are you feeling about eating inside?
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Personally, I am not ready to eat inside a restaurant; I will eat outside. A couple we haven’t seen in almost two years called to see if we could get together next weekend for dinner. My husband did mention that I was not comfortable in dining inside, so it is my job to find a place that will take reservations and has outside dining. I “believe” my health issues make me more at risk if I were to contract COVID, so at this time, I still want to be extra careful. The other couple is also fully vaccinated, so I am ok with being with them, but for now, needs to be outside.
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I am meeting a group of high school classmates for a barbecue next Saturday. We have all been vaccinated. Pre-Covid, we met every few months for dinner and lots of laughs. One of our group is retiring and moving out of state. 
Sad for us, but happy for him.
I am most looking forward to seeing my siblings, their spouses, nieces and nephews, and great nieces and nephews. May is almost here!
I will eat on a patio/outdoors, but will not eat inside a restaurant yet.
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For those of you not ready to eat indoors yet, can you elaborate?
My DH and I have been the most conservative of our circle, judging from my social media feed. We will both be fully vaxxed in a week.
I was considering meeting another fully vaxxed friend for breakfast, but you give me pause.
On the otheR hand, I can’t think of one other person I know who has NOT been in a restaurant. Such a disconnect sometimeS.
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I received my 2nd Pfizer vaccine on Friday so I should be at full efficacy in 12 more days, but I still don’t think H and I will eat inside. Not that either of us have any health issues, we just feel more comfortable meeting and eating outside for now. We live near the beach in San Diego and have great weather and many outdoor eating options so that’s what we’ll continue to do.
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I have been eating indoors since fully vaccinated. mostly when the weather is so bad enough that eating outdoors doesnt make sense. We maybe go out once a week, mostly to play trivia at this local pizza joint. The staff there is now vaccinated.
I got shot #2 on March 3rd so have been fully immunized for about a month. I just met a friend for coffee inside for the first time last week and then I went to lunch inside this week. My willingness to dine indoors was limited by a shortage of fully immunized friends but that situation is easing so I expect I will be dining inside more and more. I believe the efficacy of the vaccine is as good as they say it is so I’m not worried about getting Covid. If it becomes evident that a variant is capable of infecting the fully vaccinated I will of course change my behavior.
I’ve dined inside. We are vaccinated, we went to dinner with my in laws. It’s cold here still, so yes. Don’t feel particularly nervous about it either.
If it was nice where I live then I would have dined outside if that was an option.
I’d rather dine inside than in one of those plastic igloos that I see.
There is such a small chance of getting coronavirus, I’m tired of being on edge all the time. And I’m tired of my cooking. And I had a cocktail.
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@surfcity For me, while I would love to eat inside, I am just not ready. I have no control over the couple that are at the next table unmasked; for all I know, they have an active case of COVID. Of course that same couple could be sitting next to me outside, but I feel safer there. I am not saying this is rational, just how I feel today.
As we usually had dinner out twice a week prior to COVID, I can not wait to get back out there, especially with our friends. Like @deb922 I am very tired of my cooking and miss the cocktails while out!
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On our way home from seeing my parents we have stopped off for two nights at the home of fully vaccinated friends. We are spending much time outdoors, and the weather is nice enough that windows are open when we are inside. We are about to go pick up some Mexican food and then come back here and have a glass of wine on the deck while watching the light change on the cliffs.
Like @snowball , none of us are quite ready to go into crowded restaurants.
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In May my niece is getting married. My whole family (15+) will be there and we will all be fully vaccinated. My kids and my mother are staying at a large airbnb house. I want to host a get together for my family at the house. The house has a large porch, so it could be indoor and outdoor. D1 doesn’t feel comfortable to have so many people indoor, but I am not sure if I feel the same way. I am thinking about getting rapid tests from Walmart or CVS for everyone to make D1 feel more comfortable.
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Thanks for all your candor. I have been struggling for many months because of social media (I know, I know, it’s not Real Life. But in this case, I am just reacting to the numerous photos of people at restaurants, indoor gatherings etc. )
I definitely would feel safer outside, but I am trying to calibrate the actual risk of dining inside. Everywhere I go I do assume all the other people could be COVID positive! Restaurants here are still limited to 50% capacity so I would only go if they were adhering to that. I guess there is a small risk of sitting close to an infected person and breathing their air and being caught in the 20% of the exposure that the vaccine does not stop.
Tangent question - how do all the people who are currently dining in just ignore the risks? I am a numbers person and a science person, and if I read compelling statistics I just can’t ignore it. I guess these are the same people who play the lottery and roll the dice on a lot of things!
We just got back from eating at Applebee’s with my inlaws. First time we’ve eaten with them there. I am a paranoid person by nature and it’s taken me awhile to warm up with the indoor dining. We first started with places like Jimmy John’s and Moes. Places where it was mostly just us and the masked employees and you could be done in 15-20 min. Then we started going to places that tend to have more open dining areas and weren’t crowded. Places where we order and can be done eating in 30-45 min. And places that are adhering to the restrictions with lots of space or empty tables in between. We have not been to a small, crowded place nor anywhere where we linger for long periods of time.
I also talk myself down with calculating the numbers. What is your current area’s infection rate? Ours is around 20 per day per 100,000 people. That’s low for us. A high peak number is around 100 per day which is still 0.1% of the population. Even if it was that “high” and they missed 3x the number of people and you were infectious for 7 days, that’s 2% of the population. If there were 100 people in the restaurant, chances are 2 would be infectious. (And most places we have eaten have a lot fewer than 100 people. More like 20-25 plus employees) What are the chances they’d be seated at the proper spot that would most infect you when tables are spaced so far apart? And then if you’re fully vaccinated, what are the chances that you’d get sick from that? Pretty darn small. Anyhow, that’s how I talk myself down from the ledge.
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For me my opinion is colored by the fact that my uncle likely got Covid (and died from it) from dining in a restaurant. H and I have been doing take out since the beginning of the pandemic and have gotten quite fond of it whether we eat it at home or in the car. Someday we’ll eat in a restaurant again, but not now. We’re fully vaxed now, I do trust them to keep us safe, but I can’t help thinking about my uncle every time we go inside a restaurant even for take out.
FWIW MIT put out a new study showing distancing inside really doesn’t matter.
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