I’ve been hiding in my home since April. After I’m vaccinated i expect i will still wear a mask outdoors. But I’ll go shopping when i want to, not once a month. And I’ll visit my elderly mom when it’s not an emergency. (She will be vaccinated before i am, and i may start visiting her after her vaccine takes affect.)
Quite possibly yes. For evidence, read:
The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History
If there is a high level of social trust in your society, people will want the vaccine even if the benefit is just a bit higher than the risk. But if they think the medical establishment is a bunch of liars just in it for the money, how deadly it is won’t matter. All that then matters is whether people believe the experts.
Cancer is much more deadly than COVID. And here is what a lot of people think:
The relevant measure of merit is not the protection of the vaccinated individual. It’s whether
A vaccinated person without a mask is probably
better protected from catchingless likely to spread COVID-19 than a non-vaccinated person wearing a mask.
We still have far too many people thinking these precautions are about protecting themselves. They are. But the protection you supply (or don’t) to everyone else when you’re out in public is the difference that will eventually stop COVID or that will never be enough to stop COVID.
Sure. But if 3 or 4 friends who are all vaccinated gather indoors, maskless, is that still a level of risk that endangers the community?
IMO no. That would be a reasonable thing to do and would not contribute materially to community spread.
But it seemed to me much of the commentary upthread amounted to folks suggesting
Now I’m vaccinated so it’s safe for me to go unmasked to the grocery store because I can’t get sick. And, more importantly, it’s OK for everybody to think that same way. Further, we really want the authorities to encourage folks to think that way because we need to give the public a carrot (the ability to go unmasked) if we expect them to take the risk / inconvenience of being vaccinated.
That way lies an explosion of spread. Even before the cheaters get involved.
For those of us that like to think of ourselves as socially conscious, this has been a year when literally any risk that wasn’t absolutely life or death or required for your job was just blatantly irresponsible. Get a hair cut? Have Christmas with one other household? You hate society. I think we should talk about some small ways the vaccinated people could find some relief.
Agree its been galling as hell to watch so many people sacrifice so much while so many others sacrifice nearly nothing. My life has been 98% on hold since March too.
We all need some positive strokes here.
[quote=“iamthewalrus_3, post:15, topic:931817”]
It’s not quite either because you can’t just add the probabilities; there’s a slim chance that we both get it outside and then somehow both transmit different strains to each other, but it’s closer to 400x.
[/quote]Gotcha — thanks! Makes sense.
No, the general consensus is that, while it’s not inconceivable that it works that way, it’s far more likely that it works like the vaccine for almost every other disease, and protects against both illness and transmission.
As for myself, I’ll keep on masking until everyone’s had a chance to get the vaccine (some will choose not to, but there’s nothing I can do about that). I don’t expect that it’ll make a significant difference in itself, but setting a good example counts for something.
MandaJo you’re approaching this decision from the side of an individual. An individual, who is apparently capable of making informed, well thought-out decisions for themselves. But how should I, as the director of a nursing home, or the Gov of a state act? When less than 8% of the population has been vaccinated so far (an insignificant number). And the population in general as proven that they are not as conscientious as you?
The best option is to leave the protocols in place and adjust them as you would based on cases and positivity rates. Just as you would without vaccines.
But do you let vaccinated people come in to say goodbye to their loved ones? That’s not a little decision.
You’re right. That’s not a little decision.
And there’s still big things to consider.
- Do I trust that these people have truly been vaccinated?
- Vaccination is not a panacea. There is still the possibility of spread even among the vaccinated.
And these are just two off the top of my head.
These are indeed difficult and important decisions and they should not be taken lightly.
We have to remember, these decisions are usually not on a case by case basis, but are put in place to ensure the safety of an entire population.
Vaccination can be verified. They have a special card. And no, it’s not a panacea. But pre-Covid, every visitor to a nursing home could have had flu, and it could have killed someone. And we let them walk through public areas unmasked!
If vaccine rollout is fast enough, maybe case counts will drop. But I do think COVID policies should consider vaccinated people as substantially less likely to be a threat, and adjust when possible. We shouldn’t make grandma die alone because of security theater.
Yeah, the question is not “is it safe for some vaccinated people to start having get togethers?”. It’s “should the governor OK get togethers for everyone who’s been vaccinated?”.
I do as well. It’s just (from a certain point if view) a much more difficult decision than just saying “vaccinated people can go back to normal”.
Sure. But it’s also more difficult than just “keep wearing masks”.
And you keep mentioning the flu.
Sure, if I visited Grandma, at the home, with the flu, I could potentially kill her. But, if I visit Grandma with covid, I could potentially kill her and three other little old ladies that I passed by in the hall. It’s not the same.
It’s not the same now. But you could have killed three little old ladies back then, too–it was just really unlikely. So I guess for me the question is, at what point does the risk from COVID decrease to the point that it’s in line with the risks we previously considered acceptable?
And I don’t know when that is. But I think we should talk about it, without the weird stigma that anyone who even wants to talk about which restrictions are appropriate is an anti-masker looking for an excuse to go wild.
I agree. The discussion needs to be had.
My point is that often people are seeing things only from their point of view. When policies are put in place, they are necessarily making value judgments about the population as a whole, not what’s best for an individual. Sometimes, that looks horribly unfair to certain viewpoints.
The problem is that sometimes when you have a big discussion with few facts, it taints later conversation when you do have facts. Imho.