We’re vaccinated. Can we travel for a family gathering?
Q:My cousins are planning a mid-April 2021 family reunion in Post, Tex. There are 11 of us out of the original 18 cousins, plus our spouses. We’re all over 65 and will have received the COVID vaccines by then. Most would be driving; two would be flying.
I am ambivalent. On the one hand, it’s possibly the last chance to see those in their 90s; on the other, I don’t want to catch or pass on the virus. I am double-masking now, and haven’t gone anywhere since this pandemic began. What are your recommendations? — Sophie, Sebastopol, Calif.
A: It’s amazing you and your cousins are part of the 62.5 million Americans who have gotten one or both doses of the vaccine in the U.S. so far. Not only is that great for your well-being, it also bodes well for your family reunion.
As you may have seen earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance that says two weeks after getting their second and final shot, those who are fully vaccinated can safely hold small indoor gatherings with other vaccinated people, without masks or distancing.
When I asked Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and guest host of the podcast “In the Bubble” about your situation, he said that if everybody is vaccinated, then risks are very low and he wouldn’t have any concerns about your gathering.
“Basically, I believe that vaccinated people can do what they’d like with other vaccinated people, though the CDC hasn’t quite come out and said that yet (beyond small get togethers in homes),” he said in an email.
But, for the very reason you expressed concern, the CDC says travel remains inadvisable because of the potential for you to carry and transmit coronavirus to those not vaccinated, or to get infected yourself. Until the majority of the population is protected, vaccinated people still need to take caution.
“Remember, this vaccine isn’t 100 percent effective; there is still a chance for you to get it post-vaccination,” says Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist with the COVID Tracking Project. Fortunately, “it’s much more likely that you’ll have a very mild, potentially asymptomatic infection.”
There is more risk involved if your journey exposes you to lots of people outside of your household. Malaty Rivera says driving in your own car to the reunion is a safer bet than flying and passing through crowded airports.
“If you are traveling as a fully vaccinated person to see a person who is fully vaccinated, I think that you should still be doing things like masking and reducing your risk overall, and even potentially testing in the case you’re in a highrisk situation during your transit,” she says.
Once you get to Texas, you should be fine hanging out, eating and celebrating with your family indoors without a mask as long as others have been fully vaccinated. Should your travel plans involve exploring the towns, remember to do things like wear a mask and keep social distance from strangers even if local mandates don’t insist you do so. Texas lifted its statewide mask mandate earlier this month.
“If you are in public settings, if you are around unvaccinated people, you should always be wearing a mask, regardless of what the jurisdiction is saying,” Malaty Rivera says.