Which variants aren’t being covered by the vaccines? I haven’t heard that to be the case.
From CDC
What You Can Start to Do
If you’ve been fully vaccinated:
- You can gather indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask or staying 6 feet apart.
- You can gather indoors with unvaccinated people of any age from one other household (for example, visiting with relatives who all live together) without masks or staying 6 feet apart, unless any of those people or anyone they live with has an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19.
I have a “small probability” of dying every time I get in my car and drive somewhere. 30K people die each year in car crashes in the US. 3 million are injured. So being very simplistic, if the probability of dying or suffering injury from COVID has gone down 95% (and in fact it seems vaccines reduce the probability of experiencing serious consequences by more than that), and it is now comparable to the risk of driving a car, then I’m OK with that.
At some point, despite the PTSD from the experience of the last year, it is important to move forward with your life. If that’s not two weeks after being fully vaccinated, when will it be?
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@Twoin18 , maybe 3 weeks? Or 3 months? Or…whatever feels right? What is the harm in giving people the space they need to feel comfortable?
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I personally don’t care how long someone needs to feel comfortable without a mask. I will never judge. But just don’t judge me (after full vaccination) for not wearing one,
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Risk for you or for the immunocompromised person?
Basically, the risk is that (a) someone has a breakthrough infection that is asymptomatic or presymptomatic, (b) gives an infections viral load to someone else, who (c) gets a breakthrough infection.
Obviously, indoor close presence without masks can make the risk of (b) high if (a) is true, but vaccination appears to greatly reduce (a) (based on observations in the real world) and (c) (based on the trials). The immunocompromised person would have greater risk than the other people, due to potentially lower protection from the vaccine.
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And what about never? Some take longer than others to recover from trauma. As I mentioned before, some situations while driving still worry me 25 years later. But we also need to try not to be the person who suffers so badly from PTSD that it ruins the rest of their life.
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Current vaccines appear to be similarly effective against B.1.1.7 as they are against the original strains, but somewhat less effective against B.1.351 (but still greatly reduce the risk of having to go to the hospital or dying). Not as much has been published about B.1.427 and B.1.429 yet, although lab studies found that there appears to be some reduction in antibody effectiveness from either prior infection or vaccine. However, against any of these variants, it is still much better to be vaccinated than to be not vaccinated.
All of these appear to be more contagious than the original strains.
We are barely 4 months out anyone being able to get a vaccine. Never is a long way off.
It’s a mask or it’s a dinner in a restaurant or having friends over - nothing too critical and life altering here to abstain from if it makes someone more comfortable!
And no judging if you don’t wear a mask - as long as it is within the cdc or place of business or home you are visiting rules.
Kindness and respect for sensitive subjects and the way people adapt to them goes a long way.
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Absolutely, I certainly respect that some are more cautious than others. But I am very worried that some people will never feel able to resume normal life. How many people that will be I have no idea and I don’t have any good benchmarks to go on. Anyone know what percentage of soldiers in Vietnam or Afghanistan suffered so much from PTSD that it had long term effects on their daily lives?
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Here is some numbers (PTSD in veterans):
I though this article was very good and it closely aligned with my thoughts about the situation: The next pandemic challenge: Reacquainting ourselves with everyday risks - The Boston Globe
Sorry if I missed this above, but I don’t see the value of the new CDC ruling regarding no outside masks for fully vaccinated, especially as an incentive for others getting vaccinated. Doesn’t that just give everyone the green light to go without a mask outdoors?
We’re fully vaccinated, and keep one with us at all times. If walking outside without crowds, we take it off. And in reverse, have it handy if we are on a more crowded sidewalk. It actually was nice to know most of our fellow citizens did the same.
But now, if one is anti-mask, and anti vaccine, I believe the social pressure is off.
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Absolutely agree.
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WEll the sports teams here in the ATL are now going to “Full capacity” . Glad I went to the game last week where the stadium was about 1/3 full. Will have to see if it really fills up for baseball. Also for soccer. Are there enough folks out there who are not timid about attending crowded events?
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Texas is having no issue filling stadiums. No thank you. My D was glad she went to Braves game last night given the changing policy.
Maybe. Guess it depends on who is playing. Masks are still required by CDC for games and crowd situations such as this.
The rules change as the data comes in. Being outside vaccinated has been deemed safe (3 foot rule). If you are vaccinated the possibility of you contracting illness (both inside and outside) goes WAY down (and the possibility you transmit covid is also hugely diminished if it happens at all.)
This ruling doesn’t give a green light to the unvaccinated to not wear a mask (although being outside it appears has always reduced risk). It’s more a welcome relief to those who are vaccinated to know they have more protection than previously thought. And I would say that is an incentive to get vaccinated if one wants to rejoin society.
If you don’t want to get vaccinated that’s an option but depending on others to protect you has never been an option in my book.
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Seems like the higher risk spectator sport venues would be hockey and basketball, which are smaller, more likely to be full, and indoors.
My brother likes to go to motorcycle races and the big one for him is in June. Last year he loved it because so few tickets were sold. Same for this year, but they may increase the capacity as the covid cases go down and vaccination rates go up.
They are trying to get the capacity up to full by the All Star Game in July. If baseball goes to full capacity, other outside sports will too.
I just looked outside of my NYC apartment and everyone is still fully masked outside.
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