Should I get the vaccine even though I work from home?
By Hannah Herrera Greenspan
Q: I’m eligible for a vaccine but still can work from home. Should I get one or forgo my dose?
A: When it comes to the vaccine, we appreciate people’s interest in forgoing the vaccine for someone who may need it more. But we just need to follow the public health algorithms to get everybody who is indicated to have the vaccine.
Working from home is safer, but it still isn’t zero risk. We still have interactions in our buildings, communities, delivery services and mail.
A single incident of exposure to a cloud of aerosolized COVID-19 is enough to get infected.
For us to get our life back to some normalcy, we need everybody to get vaccinated when their number comes up.
A: This is a common question that people ask: “I don’t really come in contact with people, so do I have to do this?” And the answer is yes, because collective vaccine distribution results in a community being more healthy and having a stronger immune response collectively than one individual.
Even if you are working from home, you will still interact with your community. It’s not a question of do you ever step out of your house. It’s more of when you step out of your house, are you at risk? And the answer again is yes.
Also, just because you receive a second dose of the vaccine does not mean you can take your mask off, because we don’t want to go backward. We’re moving in a good direction.
— Dr. Christopher
Colbert, assistant emergency medicine residency director and professor of clinical emergency medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago
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