Lower community transmission levels. Higher vaccination rates. Both are necessary, not just one.
Vaccines lower susceptibility and lower transmissibility, enough that if almost everyone were vaccinated then transmission would go near zero (see Israel). But we’re nowhere near that point in much of the country.
Masks in public businesses and other situations which remain higher risk are the most minor of an inconvenience. Yes, there is mich less incremental benefit now than months ago, but there is still incremental benefit for no cost except incredibly minor inconvenience.
No, some people have others around them who remain vulnerable, and they care about. They have family members who vaccines may not be effective for (immunocompromised and/or people with transplants) and others who aren’t vaccinated yet either (children, which aren’t at high risk of instantly dying but are at significant risk of long covid and other long term damage).
The situation is miles better than even a couple months ago. Anyone who still chooses to take precautions in some situations does not directly equate to being scared for personal safety. Being vaccinated greatly reduces the personal risks and risks to others.
There are already some states / areas where these are nearing or past the levels.
Given current variants.
It’s pretty obvious which ones aren’t at reasonable levels as the infections and hospitalizations are heading upwards in those. That means r0 is wayyyy above 1 in them (because the new hospitalizations are younger people, who would be less likely to be hospitalized, other factors being equal).
You’re not a jerk. We have a good group of people posting here. There are no jerks. And that includes those with whom I disagree on everything!
Yup. Tacking on yet another year at month’s end . . . provided I make it that far! And still having fun!
I respect the personal decisions of those persons at low risk. But for me:
I decided right at the beginning that COVID-19 was the virus from hell and that I did not want to contract this virus even if I knew in advance I would not lose my life. The virus has too much “other stuff” going on, associated with it, not death, just various forms of s***.
While I would never, ever, seek to enforce my viewpoint on others, I have witnessed far too much incoming data over this past year plus to dissuade me from my personal opinion.
It’s not all without masks. Masks are still required for everyone at some places (like child care, schools, hospitals, nursing homes). Masks are also required for unvaccinated individuals in indoor public settings and businesses. Those businesses are permitted to either make everyone wear a mask or ask people to self-attest to their vaccination status in order to not wear a mask.
I have an unvaccinated child older than 2. He is required to wear a mask at indoor businesses per the rules I just linked above. If I have to go in with him and put a mask on him, I’d be a bad parent if I also didn’t wear one. I might also be a bad parent if I take him into any indoor business that does not require everyone to mask. In other words I hope grocery stores retain the “everyone must mask” rule for now, else they’ll make shopping difficult for some parents.
~400 people are still dying from COVID every day in the USA.
Although less than that many kids have died total, just to keep relative risk in perspective. It is more complicated for now when some ages aren’t yet able to get vaccines and mixed households are inevitable. Hopefully we’ll get vaccine data by the fall for most of the younger groups and be able to at least consider vaccinations for them.
So do I. He’s never once worn a mask. He is completing his first year of preschool this week. Our state (dem governor and legislature) never required masks in preschools for kids under 5. Even with leaving little kids alone, our state has consistently been on the better side of the infection / hospitalization / death stats. The data is clear. Little kids rarely get it. When they do, they’re rarely symptomatic, and therefore, they rarely infect anyone else. If you’re going to continue wearing a mask because you feel bad without one while the law requires your kid to wear one, I get that. But don’t claim the data supports a law requiring your kid to wear it.
I’m not an expert on the data for tweens like I try to be for kids my kids age, but the data from states that have had a year of fully open middle schools seem to suggest something similar for adolescents too, doesn’t it?
I get the sympathetic mask wearing for your kid that has to follow the rules. I really do. But what about when that law changes and only unvaccinated people above 18 are required to wear them?
But little kids that go to daycare get cold and flu all the freaking time. Where’s the data that a child who is simultaneously sick with a cold or flu and COVID won’t spread it?
The data, from the beginning, was that surgical and other (< N95) masks are effective at protecting others from the wearer by reducing the spread, and much less effective at protecting the wearer from catching it. The idea for requiring unvaccinated people including children to mask is to reduce the spread.
The state requires all unvaccinated people to mask at indoor businesses. Making everyone wear a mask is the only way an indoor businesses could really enforce that requirement. Asking people to self-affirm their vaccination status is ineffective bullshit. It’d make me a bad parent because he’d see that not everyone is masking and at his age he might not understand why he and I have to mask but everyone else doesn’t.
Indian variant, indoors, in still a threat despite vaccination, even the mRNA vaccines. The NVAX results are good and I welcome another option that perhaps will persuade more to get a vaccine that’s at least at the 90% level.
Read carefully now:
Public Health England says Pfizer shot 96% effective against hospitalization, and AstraZeneca shot 92% effective [against Indian variant]
(italics mine)
Personally, I’d be more interested in not getting any symptoms at all. Reaching for 100% “from death” reminds of the sinovac junk.
I’d love for the nasal vaccine to be approved - apparently it can be another layer of defense as it somehow relies on a different mechanism than injected vaccines.
Yeah, better not give these away to prevent any blowback. Nevermind the deaths it would have prevented. On the bright side, the federal contracts should be for doses delivered, and these hasn’t been - so hopefully either JNJ or Emergent will eat the cost.
The data is the past 13 months. It didn’t happen, so why are you concerned that it will.
I understand and agree, but the data says kids rarely get it, and therefore almost never spread it. There is a reason experts couldn’t agree on an age to say kids needed masks. Any age limit for kids is essentially arbitrary. That’s because, as age increases under 18 (definition of a kid), the rate of infection goes up, but barely, so there was no clear age line for kids. The CDC chose to be overly cautious (after being hot garbage on masks in the beginning) and said “over 2.” Other health authorities said “over 5” (which my state thankfully followed). The WHO said kids 12 and under should only wear them if conditions warrant and if it doesn’t stunt development. Over the past 13 months, the rate of infection for kids 2-5 was practically non-existent regardless of whether a state adopted 2 or 5. And the rate of infection for adults didn’t go up in states that mandated masking at higher ages.
It was a given that we wouldn’t have 100% vaccine adoption and that there would be a resistance to vaccine passports. I don’t think anyone expects or wants businesses posting employees at the doors saying “vaccine papers please.” While I see your point, in the real world, it’s just not a logical expectation. But it’s also not logical to expect people to mask until this becomes a vaccine given with MMR to infants. You have to have some goalposts in mind that are actually achivable. At some point, when do vaccinated people say “to hell with this” in regards to protecting people that don’t want to protect themselves and don’t want us to try and protect them?
That doesn’t make you a bad parent. That just means you have to explain the concept of free choice to your kid and that different people choose to do different things with their freedoms. It’s no different than not letting him drink soda when he sees other kids drinking soda or not letting him play on a tablet when he sees other kids glued to a screen.
I have yet to meet the unvaccinated person clamoring for kids to continue wearing masks. So far I have only heard vaccinated people advocating it. Explain to me how that makes sense when masking kids is being done specifically for the unvaccinated adults.
Probably because I haven’t seen the data. The state’s experts decided to require kids > 2 to mask indoors, and I defer to the experts.
About a month ago, or 4 weeks after the daily vaccination rates started falling .
It’s a little different, because in one situation I have control – mine doesn’t hang out with kids who drink soda or play on a tablet. It’s not a restriction if he doesn’t know about it. But trying to explain “free choice” as you say is very different and it would be a restriction, which requires enforcement.
Indian (Delta) variant is coming. Est to be 2 to 2.6 times more infectious than wuhan strain and I’ve seen reports of it being more infectious and causing more serious illness in younger folk.
IMO, perhaps take a page from tobacco warnings, and start deploying targeted ads with pics of people in their cohort severely ill and dying. Make a big deal out of it, maybe cause a minor uproar, so the media picks it up for more free outreach. ~1+ month lead time to be fully vaccinated - start now.
“Right now, in the United States, [Delta accounts for] about 10 percent of infections. It’s doubling every two weeks,” Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said Sunday on Face the Nation.
researchers at Public Health England posted data (which had not been peer-reviewed) indicating that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were 88 percent effective at preventing a symptomatic infection with the Delta variant. Meanwhile, the data said, two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine were 60 percent effective. (Notably, just one shot of either vaccine was not protective, offering only 33 percent efficacy against symptomatic Delta infections. Experts emphasized the importance of not skipping the second dose.)
You haven’t seen that kids didn’t die from COVID, kids didn’t get hospitalized with COVID, people with kids didn’t have a higher likelihood of catching COVID?
You’re not deferring to THE experts. You’re deferring to some experts. Experts don’t agree on the question of what ages should wear masks.
It’s not different. Those were just examples. You know what I mean. Even if they don’t apply, the concept does. If your kid never hangs out with kids that are allowed to do things that you don’t allow your kids to do, logically speaking, your kid either doesn’t hang out with many other kids, or you’re the parent with the most lax rules. Is it possible that a group of 6 kids, the parents all have the exact same rules? Sure. But realistically, that’s highly unlikely.
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