After the jab: Vaccinated Americans wonder, ‘What now?’
Congratulations if you’re lucky enough to be among the 1 in 10 Americans who’ve already been vaccinated for Covid-19, said Sandee LaMotte in CNN.com. But also sorry—because “there is no immunity passport yet.” One of the hard truths that people are learning about vaccines is that their effectiveness in reducing risk doesn’t take full effect until most other people are immunized as well, which means taking safety precautions will remain necessary for “a good, long time.” Granted, it’s “probably pretty safe” for anyone who’s been vaccinated to start seeing family and friends who’ve also received their two shots and waited the two or three weeks for full immunity to kick in. But “think of a face mask as your best friend,” because for now, even a vaccinated person still faces significant risks and poses risks to others.
As you look at the year ahead, “the best way to set realistic expectations is to think of it in three stages,” said Sigal Samuel in Vox.com. During Stage 1—when your close friends and family are vaccinated—you could, say, rent a cabin and spend a week together without masks or social distancing, provided you don’t interact with the public. But even that would put you personally at risk, and not just because Covid-19 variants have begun spreading. No vaccine is 100 percent effective against Covid itself, and though in most cases vaccination prevents severe illness, “experts can’t rule out the possibility that you’ll develop milder symptoms, which could conceivably turn chronic.” Stage 2 will arrive once your city or state has reached herd immunity, ushering in safe returns to places like movie theaters and indoor restaurants. If the vaccination rollout goes smoothly, that stage could be here by mid-fall. Stage 3, when global herd immunity will make it safe to travel internationally, probably won’t arrive until 2022 or later.
Until clear guidelines are issued, people who’ve been immunized will have to make their own risk calculations, said Erin Allday in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Like yes, you can see your grandchildren,” says epidemiologist George Lemp. “But what if your daughter has an underlying condition and is at risk?” One concern of experts is that immunized people may still be able to contract Covid-19 and spread it while showing no symptoms. But experts also generally encourage people who’ve received their shots to start returning cautiously to normalcy. Robert Wachter, chief of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, says he recently received his first professional haircut in a year and enjoyed the mild freedom of it. “I think there will be a lot of that,” he says, “just dialing down the level of anxiety.”