CDC: Stick to safety despite vaccines
Unknowns linger about effect of shots on carrying virus
You are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus – now what? Don’t expect to shed your mask and get back to normal activities right away.
That’s going to be a disappointment, if not a shock, to many people.
In Miami, 81-year-old Noemi Caraballo got her second dose on Tuesday and is looking forward to seeing friends, resuming fitness classes and running errands after nearly a year of being extremely cautious, even ordering groceries online.
“Her line is, ‘I’m tired of talking to the cats and the parrots,’ ” said her daughter, Susan. “She wants to do things and talk to people.”
But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn’t yet changed its guidelines: At least for now, people should follow the same rules as everybody else about wearing a mask, keeping a 6-foot distance and avoiding crowds – even after they have gotten their second vaccine dose.
Vaccines in use so far require two doses, and experts said especially don’t let your guard down after the first dose.
“You’re asking a very logical question,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said when a 91year-old California woman recently asked if she and her vaccinated friends could resume their mahjong games.
In that webcast exchange, Fauci only could point to the CDC’s recommendations, which so far are mum about exceptions for vaccinated people getting together. “Hang on,” he told the woman, saying he expected updates to the guidelines as more people get the coveted shots.
What experts also need to learn: The vaccines are highly effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19, especially severe illness and death – but no one yet knows how well they block spread of the coronavirus.
It would be great if the vaccine means someone who otherwise would have been hospitalized instead just has the sniffles, or even no symptoms. But “the looming question,” Fauci said during a White House coronavirus response briefing last week, is whether a person infected despite vaccination can still, unwittingly, infect someone else.
Studies are underway to find out, and hints are starting to emerge. Fauci pointed to recent research from Spain showing the more coronavirus an infected person harbors – what’s called the viral load – the more infectious they are. That’s not surprising, as it’s true with other illnesses.
Some preliminary findings from Israel have suggested people infected after the first vaccine dose, when they’re only partially protected, had smaller viral loads than unvaccinated people who got infected. That’s encouraging if the findings hold up. Israel has vaccinated a large fraction of its population and scientists worldwide are watching how the outbreak responds as those inoculations increase.
Also crucial is tracking whether the vaccines protect against new, variant versions of the virus that are spreading rapidly in some countries, added Dr. Walter Orenstein, an infectious disease expert at Emory University. He has been vaccinated and is scrupulously following the CDC guidelines.
What if the fully vaccinated are exposed to someone who’s infected? The CDC did recently ease those rules: No quarantine as long as the vaccinated person shows no symptoms and it has been at least two weeks but not longer than three months since their second dose.
Getting on an airplane? Vaccinated or not, the CDC still urges essential travel only.
International travel is an even tougher prospect. Expect countries that have different quarantine and test requirements to come up with varying postvaccination guidelines – especially since multiple types of vaccines, some better proven than others, are used around the world. There’s also the concern about carrying those worrisome mutations from one country to another.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.