Your social comfort level once vaxed

The Quarantine Zone
61

For me it’s definitely others. I just got my 2nd shot a few hours ago (huzzah!) and it’s definitely taken the edge off in terms of my personal concern, but my personal concern was never very high. My concern for infecting other (vaccinated) people in my circle is also way down, of course, as even if I get COVID the vaccine should make me way less contagious.

However, in my area cases are trending up, and we’re on the verge of being a “level 4” county again. Even with the vaccine I can still be a transmitter, so I’m going to continue avoiding large crowds and indoor dining until our numbers look better. I’m just gonna keep doing my part until the science says we can go back to normal.

62

WARNING: RANT FOLLOWS.

I belong to a group of seven women friends (ages 70- 80-ish) who have been getting together for lunch and stuff for the past 26 years. For the past year, our get togethers have been on hold, but now, we’re planning an outdoor lunch this coming Thursday BECAUSE ALL OF US HAVE NOW HAD BOTH VACCINES. That was our threshold for getting together.

EXCEPT one of the women is an anti-vaxxer. Grrr. She is a flakey, new-Age, moderate conspiracy theorist, I-feel-healthy, “positive thinking will save me,” bullshit thinker type.

Today she texted that she was planning to attend. In factual terms, it’s probably safe for all of us, because we’ve been vaccinated and it will be outside. But it royally pisses me off that she won’t give a thought to just waltzing in to this get together, not giving a single fuck that the rest of us have been responsible and grown-up and have followed protocols stringently for the past year. And have gone to the moderate inconvenient (and slight risk) of getting TWO vaccines for the safety of ourselves and others. As far as I know, she has taken no precautions at all, and just goes about her business believing that Good Vibes and sucking on a crystal will save her.

And yet this not over! My hairdresser’s sister in law died of covid two weeks ago. Another women who was an occasional guest of our lunch group over the years, died of it after being on a ventilator for a month! I read yesterday in the New York Times about a woman who followed all the guidelines to the letter, got her first vaccine, caught the virus and quickly died.

I just want to clobber this member of our group or shake her. The trouble is that all the others are Nice Ladies, so no one will say anything to this anti-vaxxer or even express concern. They might to me or to each other, but they won’t to her, because Nice Girls Don’t Speak Up – even when the nice girls are now old ladies. Grrrrr again!

I’m the de facto leader of this group – sort of the Den (Grand)Mother, as it were. They expect me to be a bitch and I usually oblige. I hate the idea of this anti-vaxxer and the others like her thinking they’re special, and that the laws of science and medicine don’t apply to them.

I’ve asked the group for comments, but I don’t expect anyone to say anything. There is one woman whose 80+ year old husband is in poor health and she might just decline to attend but with no mention of the anti-vaxxer.

Yes, I am on the warpath!

Are we allowed to say that anymore?

63

Okay, one of the ladies posted, “It’s too bad [anti-vaxxer] has decided to put herself at risk, but friends can agree to disagree-- Kumbaya?”

The hostess posted, “I’m having lunch on Thursday, so let me know if you plan to come or not.”

Then the anti-vaxxer posted, “I have decided not to be around this energy. Best of Life to you all!”

“This energy”??

Problem solved. I’m sure everyone blames me for pointing out the elephant in the room. That’s what comes with being Mom.

ETA: Upon reflection, I think by “this energy,” she means “people who acknowledge that COVID exists and is a potential threat.” She is one of these people who believe that “positive thinking” will keep anything bad from happening.

64

Congrats! You seen to have diced the problem with, frankly, a minimum of drama.

65

Thanks. Frankly, after dealing with these women for 26 years… yikes. It’s like herding kittens.

66

If there is risk in vaccinated people mixing with unvaccinated people, how CAN it end? Haven’t half of the posts in this forum lately been complaining about people refusing the vaccine? What are we gonna do, kidnap them and strap them down? Wait until all those people get the virus?

Besides, haven’t we also been talking about how scientists need/tend to be significantly cautious about things like this? Isn’t that what this whole “you could still transmit while immune” thing is all about? Why wouldn’t it be significantly safer, given the state of the world, for social distancing and banning of crowds and travel to continue for the next, say, two years?

67

I think it would be, as yukky as that sounds. But no government will be able to enforce it. Each individual person or business could take it upon themselves to continue the protocols, but there will never be 100% compliance.

I’m still masking up everywhere except when alone or in the presence of fully vaccinated people.

68

You could, but the emerging data suggests that vaccinated people are much less likely to transmit the virus. Which is great news.

69

New Zealand probably could. Not to mention the authoritarian countries, and whatever other nations are doing well now could continue to be so indefinitely. If their populace and economy are doing okay now, why wouldn’t they go along?

70

I shouldn’t have said “no government”; I should have said the US government.

71

Mm, yeah.

72

(Though I do admit two years of no restaurants, sporting events, or in-person school does at least sound kind of off-putting.)

73

It can end when enough people (it doesn’t need to be 100%) have either gotten vaccinated (and I think many of the current refusers eventually will, as they see others doing so and not keeling over) or developed immunity from exposure. Or died, of course. But so far not even everybody who strongly wants to get vaccinated has been able to get their shots; let alone all of those vaguely willing who will only get vaccinated when it’s easy, and all of those who just didn’t want to be in the first few months of people to get something new.

And it can also end, from the point of view of the vaccinated, if and when we have enough knowledge to say ‘vaccinated people don’t spread it to others, or do so only extremely rarely.’ That’s possible, and early signs are encouraging, but it’s too soon to tell. It’s also too soon to tell how often we’ll need boosters – so far we’ve only got six months’ experience, and so far the answer appears to be ‘not for at least six months.’

74

Ditto. I was never that worried about what COVID would do to me, even before I was vaccinated. At one point I remember thinking that, if it turned out that having had it made one immune but that no vaccine would be forthcoming for years, I might switch my strategy from trying not to catch it to trying to get it over with, without exposing anyone vulnerable, so I could be part of the immune herd. If everyone’s risk from COVID were as low as I perceive mine to be, I would frankly be a lot less tolerant of all that’s been asked of me. Yes, I know my risk isn’t zero, but it’s never been high enough for me to justify giving up so much for so long. But I’m trying to behave the way I hope healthy young people will behave if there’s another pandemic when it’s my turn to be in a nursing home. And that includes continuing to take precautions to limit asymtomatic transmission and the spread of variants now that I perceive my own risk to be basically negligible.

75

My wife has a similar issue w/ 1 of her book clubs. They went to zoom, and my wife has arranged all of the sessions, because of her account and familiarity. So, it’s a bit of a pain. Now, all members but one have been vaxxed, but when my wife asked if they could go back to in-person, her question dropped like a rock. And the un-vaxxed person has no intention of getting jabbed.

Plus, one member moved out of state, so she WANTS it to continue via zoom.

Grr! I liked Covid giving me an excuse for NOT getting together w/ people!

76

I feel her pain. That’s exactly the situation with my group. I also hate it when I ask a question and get dead (text) silence in return.

Damn these anti-vaxxers. Who the F do they think they are? Okay, so don’t get vaccinated-- whatever. But then you expect to mingle unmasked with those of us who are taking this seriously and bothered to go to all the trouble and (moderate) risk of getting vaccinated?? Sorry, I guess I still had some rant left in me…

77

I’ve got mixed feelings about my planning board meetings, which have been hybrid for some time.

On the one hand, on Zoom I can only see some of the people, as some are at the town hall but not on Zoom and some are on Zoom but without a functioning (or turned-on) camera; plus which the chair keeps sharing his screen, which prevents me from seeing anybody but him (and doesn’t usually help me see whatever he’s trying to show, because I’m doing Zoom on an iPad and with my eyes the documents he shows on that screen are usually impossible to read.) And some of the time I can’t hear people properly, either.

On the other hand – with a Zoom meeting I don’t have to drive into town. I need to be reasonably presentable from the waist up, but nobody can smell whether I just got off a tractor spreading fertilizer, so if finishing the job meant no time for a shower before the meeting it doesn’t matter, I just need time to wash face and hands and change shirt. And in the winter it didn’t matter if the forecast was for a sleet storm before I could get back home. And I’ve been taking notes on the desktop while I had Zoom on the iPad; whereas when I go to meetings in person I take semilegible notes by hand and then transcribe them when I get home, which is a timeconsuming nuisance. I suppose I could take the iPad to meetings; but it’s a pain to take notes on because of the size of the screen compared to the size of the document, and a pain to type anything much on unless I also schlep along a separate keyboard; plus which, if we still have some people attending by Zoom, I might want to be using it to run Zoom on so I can see and hear those people and they can see and hear me (unless the chair’s sharing his screen, of course . . . but we could at least still hear each other.)

I suppose I will show up in person at the next meeting, which is in May. But I’m not wildly enthusiastic about it.

78

I’ve just had my second vax, and I’ve had covid with no effects despite being “extremely clinically vulnerable” in a couple of ways. So I’m pretty comfortable about socialising now, or in a couple of weeks, anyway - it doesn’t seem likely that I’ll be either a victim or an unknowing carrier.

Quite apart from general social responsibility, I do have an adult daughter who hasn’t been vaccinated and may not have had covid (she lives with me, but had no symptoms so wasn’t tested), but I haven’t read anything reliable that says I could actually be a vector for infection. One person in a hundred million testing positive for covid after a vaccine is not the same thing.

But I understand that most people won’t have had my experience, so I’ll go by what they’re comfortable with rather than what works for me.

And I think we’ll all need a little time to readjust to being around people. Some will need more time than others. I’m not sure where I’ll lie on the spectrum there, TBH.

I’d actually like my zoom groups to continue regardless of covid.

79

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are both ~95% effective at preventing you from getting a case of Covid. IOW, absent any changes of behavior, your chance of getting Covid is 5% of what it used to be.

That’s obviously a huge improvement, but that’s not one in a hundred million, unless you only had a 1 in 5 million chance of getting it in the first place. And of course if you come down with Covid, you can be a vector for infection.

Also, concerning your adult daughter, be aware that the B.1.1.7 variant (the UK variant) is becoming widespread in the U.S., and it is hitting younger people much harder than the original Covid virus did. It’s ‘stickier’ is how they’re putting it, and it takes much less of a viral load for someone to get sick with it.

So yeah, you’re a lot safer than you were, but if I were you I’d continue to be fairly circumspect until your daughter has had her shots.

80

Current rates where I live are 20 in 100,000, so 200 per million. So with 95% efficacy, my rate is 10 in a million after the vaccines. However, I also had covid in October (confirmed, not just me thinking I had it), so the chances will be even lower than that.

Of course, those are theoretical figures - I was referring to the extremely rare known cases of people testing positive after the vaccine, particularly after the recommended two week period from the second vaccine.

I’m in the UK, so obviously closer to the UK variant. Though it seems to be spreading less than people initially feared.

JIC anyone assumes I’m an anti-masker or something, like people are wont to do, like I said I’ll continue going with other people’s level of social comfort, and basically that means continue to wear a mask and socially distance for a fair while even after they’re not legally mandated. It’s helping to stop other diseases spreading too, of course.