Vaccinated? COVID advice clear as mud

#Middlebury #Seniors

If you’re confused about COVID vaccine and when our lives are going to change for the better, you’re not alone. We’re considered to be fully vaccinated once two weeks have passed after the second dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after the one-dose Johnson & Johnson.

What’s new is this, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: If fully vaccinated, you can be indoors with other fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask. You can meet indoors with unvaccinated people in one household unless one of those people has a health risk. If you’ve been around someone who has COVID, you don’t have to stay away from people or get tested unless you have symptoms … or live in a group setting. In that case, stay away from others for 14 days and get tested, even if you don’t have symptoms. Clear as mud, right?

It gets worse. According to the CDC, as fabulous as this new vaccine is, even if fully vaccinated, we still need to wear masks in public. We still need to social distance. We still need to avoid medium and large crowds. We still need to stay out of poorly ventilated spaces. We should delay travel.

So what’s the holdup? Why are we still under restrictions after getting the vaccine? The best I can figure out is that the answer lies with the COVID variants, the different versions created as the virus mutates. It appears that not all of the vaccines work equally well on all of the variants. Frankly, some of the vaccines work rather poorly, depending on which variant the vaccine encounters.

Until scientists figure this out, we still need to be cautious: wear masks, stay away from people, stay out of crowds. Except for getting the vaccine, not much has changed.

© 2021 King Features Synd., Inc.