What’s safe after COVID-19 vaccination?
Shots protect people, but they may not prevent the spread of coronavirus
You’re 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 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 Caraballo. “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’ve received their second vaccine dose.
The vaccines are highly effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19, especially severe illness and death — but no one yet knows how well they block the spread of the coronavirus.
“The looming question,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, during a White House briefing 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.