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As you certainly know, this country’s ambitious vaccination effort has been plagued by major labor pains: record confusion, poor communication, defective data and scarce vaccine supply – all exacerbated by unfair distribution, alleged political favoritism and undue vaccine dispute .
Even so, by Friday, more than 118 million injected vaccines went to arms and about 42 million people, 12.6% of the country’s population, had been fully vaccinated. Almost a quarter of US residents have taken at least one dose.
The vaccine’s release is finally increasing – just as the deadly winter wave has ended, drastically reducing rates of infection, hospitalizations and deaths. President Joe Biden promised enough vaccine for every adult in the country by the end of May and waved hope for a return to semi-normality by 4 July.
Let’s see if that happens. Unfortunately, reckless behavior or a mutated strain of the greedy virus – or both – can still trigger another outbreak. And we are not sure to what extent vaccination prevents you from infecting unvaccinated people, or for how long it protects against covid.
In short: optimism is justified, but all of us – even those who are vaccinated – still need to be careful.
In case you missed it, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new public health guidelines on March 8, which offered a small glimpse of what a not-so-distant future can bring if enough people are vaccinated. The most striking point is that it’s okay for vaccinated individuals to meet indoors with unvaccinated members of another family, without masks, as long as no one in that house is at risk of severe greed.
This is great news if you haven’t seen your children or grandchildren in person in a while. If you are fully vaccinated, it is now probably safe to visit them indoors without masks, regardless of their vaccination status. You can even hug them.
As long as they don’t live very far, that is: The CDC still disapproves of long-distance travel.
If everyone in your group gets vaccinated, so much the better. In this case, offering a dinner without a mask inside your home, for example, is “probably a low risk”, according to the new guideline.
But Dr. George Rutherford, professor of epidemiology at the University of California-San Francisco, warns against interpreting this new freedom too liberally: “People say, ‘Oh, we can have a wedding reception for 50 people in a hotel so long since they’re all vaccinated. ‘I say,’ What about the people who care for you – are they all vaccinated? What about the band? ‘ “
Public health experts and the CDC agree that if you get vaccinated and are in the company of people who are not – or if you don’t know your status – you should continue with the safeguards to mask and keep your distance.
“What I say to people who are vaccinated is: ‘You must assume that you are one of the 5 or 6% for which vaccination will fail, and that everyone around you is a super spreader,” says Rutherford.
This means that you should probably hit the brakes before going to the movies, working out at a gym, boarding a plane or dining at a restaurant.
Dr. Walter Orenstein, associate director of the Emory Vaccine Center and professor of infectious diseases at Emory University School of Medicine, points to a possible side benefit of the CDC’s new approach. “This can increase the absorption of the vaccine if it shows people that, once vaccinated, you have more freedom to do things,” he says.
Orenstein, like most public health experts, recognizes that we still have an incomplete picture of covid and how vaccines will work in the real world. Authorities should set guidelines based on the best data available at the time, he says. “If, in fact, there is a sharp increase in cases as a result, they will have to review them.”
For now, says Orenstein, he is incorporating the new guidelines into his personal life. “We haven’t had people in our house in years, and the night before, we got a couple,” he says. All were vaccinated and did not wear masks.
Others are afraid to relax too early, even if they have been vaccinated.
“I feel a real sense of relief, but that hasn’t changed my behavior,” said Sam Sandmire, a 65-year-old retired gym trainer in Boise, Idaho, who took two doses of the Modern vaccine. “I still mask and will continue to mask and social distance until science shows that I can’t infect others.”
Andy Mosley, 74, says he is not entirely convinced by the CDC’s new statement. “The information that we could start dating each other again was accompanied by many qualifiers,” said Mosley, a resident of Temecula, California, who also took two injections of the Modern vaccine. “It tells me that they are not sure about that.”
But he can change his behavior in one instance. He has not seen his daughter, a chef who lives in San Francisco, since October 2019. She is due to have an operation soon and may need his help. “Since she was immunized and I was immunized and her roommate was immunized, I would feel safe going there,” said Mosley. “So that would be a change. But I would drive; I would not fly.”
Many others, including state and local politicians, are less cautious. Texas recently ended its masking mandate. Florida remained broadly open for business during much of the pandemic.
In California, 13 counties responsible for nearly half of the state’s population have reopened gyms, cinemas and in-house restaurants – albeit at low levels. This includes Los Angeles County, one of the hardest hit regions in the United States during the winter. And Governor Gavin Newsom suggested that California’s four-tier color-coded system for phased reopening could soon add a “green” layer – which means practically back to normal.
However, Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, says that locations that open too soon “will be in big trouble soon” because of a new wave he hopes will be triggered by a fast. -spreading covid covid first detected in the UK, which is expected to become the dominant strain in the US later this month.
For the time being, maintain masking and physical distance in most social and commercial gatherings. Get vaccinated as soon as it is your turn and try to persuade people in your life to do the same. The more people vaccinated, the greater the protection for the community.
In the near future, we may all have an extra incentive to be vaccinated: proof of vaccination may be required for air travel, sporting events, concerts and other mass public meetings. This is being considered in some parts of the United States and is already happening in some countries.
Israel, for example, has started issuing six-month vaccination “passports” that would allow entry into sporting events, restaurants and other public places. This “created this kind of pressure for people who would not otherwise be interested in being vaccinated to get vaccinated,” says Rutherford.
This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorial service independent of the California Health Care Foundation.