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Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

• onionisafruit 5y ago
  There is a non-paywalled story here. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fully-vaccinated-americans-return-life-masks-cdc/story?id=77665771 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fully-vaccinated-americans-r... Neither the NYT nor ABC stories have links to the actual guidance, and I don't see anything about this on cdc.gov. I guess this was embargoed and the story was released before cdc got around to publishing the guidance. Update: Guidance is now at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guidance.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vac...
  • covidthrow 5y ago
    Thank you for noticing this. This is a media blitz, and one may wonder why there are prepared, published stories about CDC guidance that hadn't yet even been published. I'm sure there are many rational reasons for this. One, indeed, is particularly salient.
    • estaseuropano 5y ago
      This is 100% normal. Press is informed under embargo to assure information goes out quickly and widely once the information is ready/ public. Nothing nefarious about it.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • tidydata 5y ago
        Why wouldn’t the CDC publish guidance once it is ready, which the media can than report on? The mere coordination (and normalcy thereof) is exactly why people view these policies (gatekeeping) as nefarious.
        • cycomanic 5y ago
          I can give you an example, if you want information to get out and spread quickly, do you 1. put it on your website and wait until people notice it and dissiminate it or 2. Let the main information "spreaders" know in advance so they can prepare articles (possibly do some interviews) etc? Which do you think reaches more people in a given time?
          • iso1210 5y ago
            You post on your website, somebody notices, 'spreaders' race to get faulty quick copy out (better fast than right), gives the conspiracy theorists a headstart as people start looking for more detail. Or you issue an embargoed release, allowing responsible 'spreaders' to get their ducks in a row, and then cometh the hour, cometh the copy-edited verbose well referenced pieces. The latter is far better than the former.
            • tidydata 5y ago
              This model gives government the power of choosing who is and is not a “trusted source” and depends on a relationship where those sources report uncritically about the information they are being given. It is also prioritizing which (for-profit) business gets favorable access. From a practicality perspective it makes sense. From a propaganda perspective it’s chilling.
              • Gene_Parmesan 5y ago
                There is really nothing chilling about national media outlets getting a PR a few hours before the PR is made public. Promise.
                • deleted 5y ago
                  [deleted]
• generj 5y ago
  It’s good to give better incentives for people to be vaccinated, as many have urged for some time. I worry this carrot isn’t tied to an adequate stick - the unvaccinated can simply go without a mask regardless of their status. Will this move actually counter our slowing vaccination rates?
  • vmception 5y ago
    It’s mostly just accepting reality and gives states an alibi out of their partisan pandemic response Like, on one end you have states waiting for an impossibly high threshold of vaccination before masks go away or nightclubs open up with dance floors. And now they can say “oh ok that was old guidance, we’re good now” On the other hand it also caters to the states that ignored old guidance “ah! Sanity has prevailed! Now can these few businesses that demand masks stop fighting us on this?”
  • kibwen 5y ago
    Ohio is holding five million-dollar lottery drawings for which only vaccinated people are eligible, and I expect other states to follow suit: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/05/13/996445109/ohio-raises-the-stakes-to-boost-vaccinations-offers-5-1-million-drawings https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0...
    • brundolf 5y ago
      Hah, that's a cool idea
      • wyldfire 5y ago
        It's genius. US should do a federal one. I liked the idea of paying people to get vaccinated [1], but since that encountered public opposition, this is the next best thing. [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/01/13/955594105/should-the-government-pay-people-to-get-vaccinated-some-economists-think-so https://www.npr.org/2021/01/13/955594105/should-the-governme...
        • 5y ago
• patwolf 5y ago
  The CDC really botched this one. Nobody will be able to take them seriously because either a) their previous guidance was correct and they only updated guidance to encourage more people to get vaccinated, or b) their previous guidance was wrong. Either way, it makes them look foolish and destroys whatever credibility still remained in the institution.
  • melling 5y ago
    No, they didn’t. The CDC explained that we didn’t know if people could be contagious after being vaccinated. Not sure where this stands. Now most people who want the vaccine will soon have it but it looks like lots of holdouts. So, now we have a carrot and stick. No mask required and people are now on their own if they choose to skip it
    • patwolf 5y ago
      The CDC director herself was saying back in April that vaccinated people don't spread the virus. > “Vaccinated people do not carry the virus — they don’t get sick,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday. That’s “not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real-world data.”
      • melling 5y ago
        In the future skip to the part where that was retracted. https://people.com/health/vaccinated-people-do-not-appear-carry-spread-covid-19/ https://people.com/health/vaccinated-people-do-not-appear-ca...
        • patwolf 5y ago
          At least I was right about the CDC lacking credibility.
          • jfengel 5y ago
            Yes, but you also said a wrong thing. Therefore you lack credibility and nobody should ever listen to you again.
• sacomo 5y ago
  Vaccines still aren't 100%. This is bad advice from the CDC. It will only lead to anti-masker/vaxxers using this as an excuse for not wearing a mask. Even the fully vaccinated should be wearing a mask around other people. 94%/97% is not 100%. edit: Japan is a good example for how masks have drastically reduced the number of infected due to mask culture. Japan has half the US population and still isn't vaccinating the general public. Even the spikes in Japan are tiny compared to the US due to mask usage. Japan is mostly open, trains are still packed, shops are still filled with people. Masks work and should still be worn once vaccinated. edit 2: good luck.
  • scotuswroteus 5y ago
    The average person can expect to be in three to four car accidents during their lifetime. I'm still driving around (vaxxed, not belligerent, happy to mask for the time being).
    • sacomo 5y ago
      That is great. But still, vaccinated people shouldn't be told that they cannot get infected. There is this weird misconception floating around that just because we get vaccinated we are somehow immune to covid-19. That is a dangerous and misguided belief.
      • infamouscow 5y ago
        I thought was actually mattered was hospitalizations and deaths. Why is measuring infections relevant?
        • unanswered 5y ago
          According to the public perception, getting COVID is a death sentence. That's all there is to it.
        • sacomo 5y ago
          The primary goal is to not contract covid-19.
• noodlesUK 5y ago
  I’ve been in the US throughout this pandemic, and I’ve had to take it extremely seriously because of vulnerable people I live with. I’m glad to be vaccinated and for my life (and my family’s) to be returning to normal. I expect that I’ll continue wearing a mask from time to time even years from now if it becomes socially acceptable, because I like both the anonymity, and the wonders it does for my seasonal allergies. I’d also like to be able to wear a mask when I’m feeling ill in the future without people reacting strangely. I’m definitely going to remain wearing a mask in stores and around people for the time being as my life returns to normal. Right now, not doing so is a strong social signal that you’re a special kind of belligerent asshole that probably hasn’t been vaccinated, and wants to pick a fight, and make everyone around you feel unsafe. It’s amazing to see how often this kind of public chest thumping is happening, and I feel terrible for the customer service employees who have to deal with it. It’s also been shocking how the changed political situation has galvanised certain other views. Several of my neighbours (in fairly gentrified suburbs) have replaced their American flags with trump flags, and engage in the same kind of angry belligerence in nearly all their activities. I don’t know how we deal with the difference in views at this point. It’s very obvious that there are two worlds in the US, and they’re drifting ever further apart, with the interfaces between them becoming seriously strained. Unfortunately guidance like this is only going to give anti-mask/anti-vax people more ammunition to be belligerent in public.
  • Miner49er 5y ago
    This is entirely based on where you live. There's places in the US where the vast majority never wore a mask, and going to the store without a mask was the more "normal" thing to do. In those places you're almost sending more of a message by wearing a mask.
  • jasonlaramburu 5y ago
    There are literally zero downsides to wearing a mask in public, and it's crazy that anyone would shame someone for it. In many Asian countries it is considered civilized and thoughtful to wear a mask when feeling ill to prevent the spread of disease. I too hope this becomes the norm in the US.
• JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  Its not black and white - we're not going for 100% security. Masks never did that anyway, and it wasn't the point in wearing them. The point was to change 'R0' to less than 1, so the epidemic wouldn't grow geometrically and swamp the healthcare system. It's quite reasonable to say that vaccinated people are less likely to spread the disease than say, an at-risk person wearing a mask. If those two are commensurate, then sure vaccinated people can go maskless. There are social reasons to keep wearing a mask of course. To reduce confusion about who's safe and who's just being negligent. I still wear one in public, and I've been vaccinated. It's popular to back-seat drive during difficult times, and point out gleefully when somebody isn't 100% in line with one's own understanding. It's largely not constructive, and causes more upset and confusion. The best advice is, do your part to reduce infection risk. And stop stirring the pot.
  • jaclaz 5y ago
    Yes - no matter how actually effective the use of (surgical) masks is - it is a symbol. You see all people around you wearing masks, you wear a mask, these simple facts act as reminder that it is a pandemy, that you have to be careful about what you do (keep distance where possible, etc.) besides wearing the mask in itself. Soon you will see lots of other poeople around you not wearing masks and you have no way to know if they are actually vaccinated (and probably in this case you are "safe") or if they are simply not wearing the mask because they ignore the recommendation or don't believe in masks or whatever (but they are not actually vaccinated so potentially "unsafe" if they come near you).
• 908B64B197 5y ago
  On the west coast now more than one third of the population is fully vaccinated (excluding BC that is severely lagging behind). How long until coastal and urban counties reach 95%?
  • sjg007 5y ago
    They won't ever reach 95%; not gonna happen.
    • ninju 5y ago
      Hmm...why not?
    • hodgesrm 5y ago
      Berkeley 94707 zip code was already at 98% of eligible population with at least one shot on April 30th. [1] I would guess a number of cities will be overall in the 90% range pretty soon. [1] https://abc7news.com/california-vaccination-rate-sf-vaccine-tracker-bay-area-covid-berkeley/10563747/ https://abc7news.com/california-vaccination-rate-sf-vaccine-...
      • ajayjain 5y ago
        Zooming in, their map reports that vaccination rates in 94707 are now over 100% -- it's the gray region north of UC Berkeley. Perhaps folks are commuting in to 94707 to receive doses?
        • powvans 5y ago
          It could be more than 100% of the population count from the previous census.
        • toast0 5y ago
          These numbers are most likely people vaccinated whose address on the paperwork was zip code Z divided by census? population estimate of people who live in zip code Z. There's lots of fun ways those numbers can be messed up including (but not limited to), people using a mailing address different from where they reside, census boundaries not matching mail delivery route boundaries, population movements, how people without mailing addresses are counted, data issues in the census, etc. In the US, we have a lack of enthusiasm for comprehensive and compulsary tracking of where people reside, and as a result, data like this is always going to be messy.
• neonate 5y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20210513224532/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/health/cdc-masks-guidance.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210513224532/https://www.nytim... https://archive.is/XdNBU https://archive.is/XdNBU
• throwaway8581 5y ago
  This is now a multi month off ramp for insane people’s cognitive dissonance. Nothing changed except that it was becoming political untenable to continue with these irrational mask policies. An entire country held hostage to people who are too trusting of what CNN and second rate government bureaucrats tell them.
• dang 5y ago
  All: I know it's a topic that brings up strong feelings, but please only post if you're in a curious state [1]—not an agitated one. We all get agitated, because we're all human—but it leads to repetitive, predictable, and eventually nasty internet comments, so please don't go there until that subsides. The story is on topic because it's significant new information [2], but we're only going to get an interesting thread if people stick to the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curious%20state&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22significant%20new%20information%22%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
• claytongulick 5y ago
  According to a large, controlled study in Wuhan [1], asymptomatic spreading is exceedingly rare. Zero cases in the study were identified. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4695 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4695
  • dreamcompiler 5y ago
    The article makes it quite clear that this finding cannot be extrapolated to countries where the virus has not been brought under control. Furthermore it says "there is plenty of evidence elsewhere showing that people infected with covid-19 may be temporarily asymptomatic and infectious, before going on to develop symptoms."
    • paul_f 5y ago
      may be. Here's the problem, many see this as let's upend society for a "may be". Versus, isolate the sick as we've always done before
  • dreadlordbone 5y ago
    While I believe it - kinda hard to trust anything out of Wuhan at the moment.
    • walleeee 5y ago
      Kinda hard to trust anything out of Washington at the moment too, considering neither nation's government appears to have publicly audited gain of function research programs or reconsidered their utility and potential risks/benefits in the first place
• RobertRoberts 5y ago
  Is living the healthiest life you can live not the best option in every circumstance? It seems society as a whole wants a quick fix, no matter what the problem is or the consequences from a cure.
  • rayiner 5y ago
    No. This American fascination with “health” is very odd. My grandparents in Bangladesh lived as long as the average life expectancy in the US today, and they’re not even remarkable. Once you have antibiotics and make it past child mortality, you’re very close to hitting diminishing returns.
    • smbullet 5y ago
      America has an enormous obesity problem which contributes to a significant number of Covid fatalities. When we tell Americans to get healthy it's mostly targeted towards those people.
      • ibejoeb 5y ago
        I agree with you entirely that there's an obesity problem. When it comes to covid deaths, though, the CDC report this week says that the vast majority--about 46%--are coinfections with flu. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/mortality-overview.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/mortality-overview.htm https://i.ibb.co/zscjxb6/Screenshot-2021-05-13-23-04-11.png https://i.ibb.co/zscjxb6/Screenshot-2021-05-13-23-04-11.png
        • epistasis 5y ago
          Not flu alone, but flu or pneumonia. What's the significance of this?
        • williamstein 5y ago
          Interesting. I followed your references and they say that the 46% comorbidity is "Influenza or Pneumonia". Covid is a cause of pneumonia (=infection of lungs), so your statement "46% are coinfections with flu" seems misleading to me.
• kjsingh 5y ago
  Who sowed the seed of doubt in me.. that vaccinated folks can still transfer the disease?
  • okaram 5y ago
    They can, but it is very unlikely.
    • boatsie 5y ago
      Probably not that dissimilar to people getting pregnant when on birth control.
      • PraetorianGourd 5y ago
        No, a lot less likely than that. Birth control efficacy is around 91% in typical use per year for the mini-pill. The mRNA vaccines seem to perform better than that AND don't have the issue of perfect use
        • samatman 5y ago
          IUD efficacy is a lot higher than that, around 99%. Condoms are lower than 91%, around 85% in real life use. The various vaccines have a spread of efficacy as well. It's a valid analogy.
          • PraetorianGourd 5y ago
            I specifically said mini-pill in my reply. As far as I understand, birth control most commonly refers to the pill, as it is the most commonly prescribed form of birth control (condoms, coitus interruptus etc. not being a prescribed form). My main beef is that the percentage efficacy calculation is different and thus not comparable. Birth control is calculated at the % chance of an event within a year. Vaccines are not calculated in the same manner, so it is hard to say that one is more effective without having the data on vaccine efficacy over a year. The data I have seen thus far does not yet indicate much of a wane over time in the same manner as birth control. Furthermore, birth control failure is due to misuse most often, not due to waning effectiveness of an initial dose. Furthermore, sperm and ovum do not tend to have selective pressure to work against birth control. It is unknown at this time whether the mRNA vaccines are generic enough to be effective against whatever mutations to the spike protein may form. Essentially my point is this, you can also say that it is about as effective as the odds of a pitcher throwing a no hit game. But besides the numbers which communicate those odds, everything that is used to calculate and define the event is different.
• sjg007 5y ago
  I'm curious to how the math works... Basically they are willing to let covid explode among the unvaccinated which presumably won't impact those that can't get vaccinated (i.e. young kids < 16) and maybe that that number is smaller than what our hospitals can treat. I'm also gonna guess that the people who have gotten vaccinated basically have always worn masks and the unvaccinated never have unless forced. That explains my town.
  • dreamcompiler 5y ago
    The US population is around 30% fully vaccinated. Herd immunity requires about 90%* which we're never going to achieve because of vaccine resisters. Therefore COVID-19 is going to be endemic in the US for the rest of our lives. That means we'll see repeated temporal and geographic outbreaks forever, and people who are not vaccinated will continue to die. This is now our world. *90% is based on the high R-value of this virus taken together with the known even-higher R-value of several of the variants. It's a realistic number, despite what some politicians would have you believe.
    • MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
      Covid has shown many people, including myself, how powerless the government really is in enforcing policies imo. This includes both presidential administrations. It has also showed that a lot of people that trust words of scientists do so in dogmatic ways that are unwilling to change their stance after the scientists do, like Fauci saying there is no point to wearing a mask when people get vaccinated. This "pro-science" dogmatism has become a religion for people to the point that you cannot refute it. They hold the keys to some arbitrary insight and unwillingly compromise. It's almost like it has become a unorganized paganistic belief system in the name of science, but not even partaking in the basic fundamental steps of the scientific method by readdressing your hypothesis when brought about with new information.
    • selimthegrim 5y ago
      Covid will be like the 1895 Russian flu, the coronavirus OC43 that eventually mutated into insignificance
• ll0rtll0rt 5y ago
  They only did this because Fauci is GOING TO BE ARRESTED! Fauci is a fucking terrorist - I hope he gets stoned to death on live tv. FUCK JOE BIDEN, FUCK FAUCI!
• lvturner 5y ago
  I don't know if anywhere in the United States enforces mask wearing with some kind of law - but assuming they do, doesn't this severely complicate things? How do you tell quickly and easily if someone not wearing a mask is vaccinated or not? Where I am, there is an app I can use to display my vaccine records - and I believe they are working on an even more 'convenient' version that shows something similar to a red or green QR code - but this has obvious downsides and potential future repercussions. Even with this, they are hesitant to say "It's ok to take your masks off in public now" as it'll be so difficult to enforce.
  • shados 5y ago
    Yup. A lot of the rules were made in this awkward middle ground between health organizations' recommendations, politics, and need to be enforceable (the later made worse because the ADA in the US makes it really hard to enforce anything since you can always just say "lol health issues!" and no one's allowed to check). People have been constantly trying to "reason" behind certain rules. "Why do I have to X if Y is allowed, it makes no sense!" when most of the time it's purely so its possible to enforce something. In this case as states adopt this recommendation, you can essentially assume any kind of mask rule is null and void and it's now just a suggestion, because it's now completely impossible to enforce anything. Fortunately vaccines are readily available in the US now, and while not perfect for people who can't take it, their risk should be much, much lower (unless they're in Florida, in which case, I feel for them).
  • Negitivefrags 5y ago
    If you are vaccinated, why do you care if others are or not? I mean sure, there is a small chance someone could infect you, and a much much smaller chance that than infection actually causes you a hospitalisation, but it’s not a big risk once you are vaccinated yourself. If you think the vaccine works, which I assume you do, then why do you need to know others vaccine status?
    • lvturner 5y ago
      _I_ don't need to know it, but my friend who can't take the vaccine as she is pregnant might wish to use the information to make risk assessments. Further: it is literally illegal not to wear a mask here in certain public areas - I'm specifically interested in how one would enforce that if you split between those who have to wear masks and those who now don't have to.
• thepasswordis 5y ago
  How is this not the top story on every single news aggregator in the world right now? This is like the BEST news since the vaccines were approved. This is a HUGE deal. Great job, CDC!
  • revscat 5y ago
    I’ve been wondering the same thing. This is massively good news, and I’m amazed it seems to be getting such short shrift. I went to Taco Bueno on the way home and didn’t wear a mask. Showed the teller the headline… then found out he couldn’t read. So yeah that wasn’t awesome. But this news is. First time I haven’t worn a mask in like a year.
    • ineedasername 5y ago
      >Short shrift It's been on the front page of CNN, Fox, Washington Post, Wallstreet Journal, Bloomberg...
    • omosubi 5y ago
      Couldn't read in that he was being dense or couldn't read in that he was actually illiterate? How do you survive like that?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • dgfitz 5y ago
    Because masks haven been politicized. Good news be damned.
    • waiseristy 5y ago
      Unfortunately for many, rescinding the mask mandates means removing a rather convenient tool to twist the arms of their political opponents. (as evidenced by the sheer number of downvotes in this thread, wowzers)
    • tayo42 5y ago
• NoblePublius 5y ago
  I would like to see the mathematical analysis that concludes it is unsafe for a vaccinated person to fly on an airplane without a mask while it is safe for a masked unvaccinated person.
  • dreamcompiler 5y ago
    The issue is that now there's no way to tell whether the unmasked person next to you is vaccinated and safe or unvaccinated and dangerous.
    • loopz 5y ago
      Meanwhile in more sane countries citizens choose wether to wear masks and not. We locked down early and often, so almost none died. Anyways, studies show distance to be more preventative.
      • NoblePublius 5y ago
        Your measure of sanity is the inverse of my measure of freedom, and the same as my measure of government authoritarianism.
    • NoblePublius 5y ago
      There is no statement from any Federal official that says anything like this.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  • postalrat 5y ago
    The CDC lies to encourage people to do what the CDC feels is most safe for people. They don't believe people would make the right decisions on their own. For the same reasons they cover up UFOs. (half joking about the UFOs, but not the CDC)
• ineedasername 5y ago
  I don't really understand how places looking to align their precautions with CDC guidelines can do this. We don't have any required vaccination "passport", so if a movie theatre says vaccinated customers don't have to wear masks, how can they possibly tell who is vaccinated without relying on a dubious honor system?
  • wyldfire 5y ago
    The dubious honor system that we relied upon for all the other vaccines?
    • ineedasername 5y ago
      For things like MMR we don't really need the honor system because the vast majority of the population has been vaccinated and we're pretty much at herd immunity.
    • Dylan16807 5y ago
      When did we rely on that? Before, if I went to any business and told them I wasn't vaccinated, they would reply "Okay? So what? Sorry?". And school asked for documentation of the vaccines they wanted.
  • jkaplowitz 5y ago
    Here's one way: The rules in NY already allow venues like baseball stadiums to ask for proof of full vaccination (i.e. 2 weeks after the second Pfizer/Moderna dose or 2 weeks after J&J) in exchange for giving those customers access to a seating section where the state's physical/social distancing and capacity limit rules are waived. There are other examples where the rules allow vaccination status to be checked in exchange for more permissive state rules. (And there's nothing in state law preventing businesses from requiring vaccination if they want to.) For Yankee Stadium, as one example, here are their proof requirements: "(a) a CDC-approved COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card; (b) Excelsior Pass; (c) a government-issued photograph identification and proof of vaccination form; or (d) electronically stored versions of any of the foregoing." [edit: This new system applies to Yankees games starting May 21 and later. Not sure about other venues.] Details: https://www.mlb.com/yankees/ballpark/information/fully-vaccinated-seating-sections https://www.mlb.com/yankees/ballpark/information/fully-vacci... Excelsior Pass is the state's own vaccination passport app/website, which indeed isn't mandatory but which is available to anyone who gets their vaccine series in NY. Yes, I agree this is not as practical for a small business of whatever kind.
• torgian 5y ago
  I'm not sure this is a good approach. I'm guessing part of this declaration is due to many American's approach with masks (they took my freedums!) I'm not sure if there's enough data out there showing that vaccinated people cannot pass the virus to others. It's possible you can catch it and still pass it, I'm thinking. For me, I'll continue wearing a mask in public.
  • josephcsible 5y ago
    > I'm not sure if there's enough data out there showing that vaccinated people cannot pass the virus to others. It's possible you can catch it and still pass it, I'm thinking. There's been plenty of data that shows this. That's why they did this. How much more data do you want?
• robbrown451 5y ago
  I wish it was common and expected that those that want to go maskless, wear their vaccination cards around their necks. Not a requirement, but just having it be common enough that if you do, people will know what it means. Here in San Francisco, more than 50% of people are fully vaccinated, but everyone is still wearing masks, even outdoors. I don't think it is just that SF hasn't changed the mandate, it is more about social pressure. And I say that while at the same time, being proud to live in the big city that has done the best (i.e. least per capita deaths of any US large city), thanks to a culture of taking the pandemic seriously. But I'm ready to take advantage of being vaccinated, without people crossing the sidewalk to avoid me or otherwise getting looks.
  • samatman 5y ago
    Early in the pandemic, I was That Guy. I was the only person wearing a mask in O'Hare in mid-February, when I was flying to my new home. I was That Guy in the grocery store, and CostCo, and at the bank. For almost a month. Oh I got looks. Lots of sidelong glances. Back then I think people subconsciously (or maybe consciously sometimes) figured the mask meant I was diseased. People would physically move away from me. Good! They were standing too close. Just, show some spine. Be That Guy. You're vaccinated, act like it.
    • ripper1138 5y ago
      Exactly! It has to start somewhere. I’ve been trying to be that guy. Downtown Seattle area is the same as OP described, although just barely starting to see more people go without masks outside. My wife even said so herself: she’ll stop wearing a mask “when most other people do”. A lot of people are probably thinking the same thing.
  • oceanplexian 5y ago
    Is social pressure really a particularly smart way to make decisions? We're talking about a "Feature" of human behavior that evolved during a time when we were living as nomadic hunter/gatherers. Social isolation from your tribe might have cost you your life. Fast forward to 2020. It's the exact opposite. We live in a society with billions of people. Who cares if someone saw you crossing the sidewalk gave you a bad look? Odds are that will be the last interaction with them for the rest of your life.
• ComputerGuru 5y ago
  How cynical is it to question whether or not this was timed at least in part to bolster economic outlook in the face of the market shrinkage this week over inflation fears? (Experts have been asking for more explicit guidance from the CDC for months now.) Edit: for reference, up until this point, the CDC has not even been willing to concede the safety of outdoor activities: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/briefing/outdoor-covid-transmission-cdc-number.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/briefing/outdoor-covid-tr...
  • covidthrow 5y ago
    I can't judge your cynicism, but I can say it's quite suspect that media outlets—apparently—behaved as the mouthpiece of the state: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27145446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27145446
    • unethical_ban 5y ago
      Why is it suspect? It's huge news, and will affect businesses, events, weddings, vacation, personal life for the millions of people who have still been taking public health and the CDC seriously. It's news. And I don't think it's surprising that they would have the scoop around the same time.
      • ComputerGuru 5y ago
        It’s not that it is all over the news nor that they all had the news at roughly the same time; it’s that they apparently released news saying the CDC said so before the CDC actually publicly said so.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
        • borski 5y ago
          Press releases are issued in embargo constantly; this is not new or surprising. Every single press release we issued was embargo’d until a certain time, when basically everyone covered it at once.
• livinginfear 5y ago
  I think it's worth noting that among the demographics that frequent this site there is ostensibly a deep distrust and skepticism of the American government on matters of surveillance, and law enforcement. Yet simultaneously there is ostensibly a high degree of trust in the motives and competency of the American government when it comes to COVID. There's been multiple threads lately, including one that is on the front page as we speak, critical of the American surveillance state. The comments exhibit a high degree of distrust towards the FBI, NSA, and other law-enforcement institutions. This degree of distrust seems almost absolute, yet the word of the CDC seems to be taken as gospel, despite clear hints of politicization of the COVID crisis on their behalf.
  • cozzyd 5y ago
    The NSA and CDC are fundamentally different institutions. It does not make sense to treat them the same any more than it makes sense to treat NASA and the IRS the same...
    • Nbox9 5y ago
      They are not the same, but they are institutions with a lot of similarities (NSA, CDC, NASA, IRS). They largely receive funding the same way, and are answerable to the same people (congress, White House). There is some similarities to how the heads of these organizations are determined and how the heads of these organizations are fired. In startup speak the organizations have the same VC and share many board members.
      • cozzyd 5y ago
        Yes both may be subject to some amount of political influence, but one is run by career infectious disease experts and one is run by career spies...
      • foerbert 5y ago
        This broadly oversells their similarities. Not only is the analogy questionable with board members, but it also carries the implication that they are essentially the same sorts of organizations. They are not. If you really want to carry this analogy out further, you probably need to expand it so one is a traditional startup and the other a charitable non-profit, or something of the sort. Even if you did have the same people in charge (which again, questionably applicable here), the goals, transparency, and measures of success vary so wildly that I'm not sure it means that much.
• refurb 5y ago
  As someone living in a country with very few cases of Covid suffice to say the govt is eagerly watching how this goes. Since this country has good contact tracing they’ve identified multiple cases of fully vaccinated individuals getting infected (all mild so far) and transmitting it to unvaccinated individuals.
• thrwhizzle 5y ago
  For some people the goalposts are moving faster than the speed of light. The goal was to flatten the curve. Remember that? Flatten. The. Curve. Is the curve not flat? How much flatter do you want it to be before returning to normal life? Do you want literally 0.000% risk?
  • nexuist 5y ago
    There is a worryingly large constituency, mostly on Twitter, who believe that any unjust death at all is damning evidence that all of our institutions and economic systems must be destroyed and rebuilt. Of course unjust death is tragic, but it's not an excuse to throw out all of society and start over again. I think many of these people saw mask mandates as that "rebuilding society" step, and to get rid of it so quickly (despite it being like a year) is evidence that the state "learned nothing", so to say. I even saw someone say something like "I can't believe the anti-maskers won" which so succinctly ties up the stupid reality of our political atmosphere: you can't do anything, anything at all without it being seen as a goal attempt into the other side's net. I really do believe that a large amount of people do want 0.000% risk, and they'd be happy to wear masks until 2030 to guarantee it. As for myself, I'm fully vaccinated but will continue to wear masks to make other people feel comfortable. But even before being vaccinated I didn't care too much if people wore masks around me and I certainly won't care now.
    • bb123 5y ago
      I’d be pretty careful drawing any conclusions about the mood of the nation from Twitter. The Twitter crowd are very loud and quite extremist but I believe they are small in number. To be honest I’d just avoid Twitter all together. Nothing good comes out of it.
      • jbjohns 5y ago
        I wish companies and politicians would follow your recommendation.
      • kbelder 5y ago
        You could post this in nearly every hackernews thread and I'd upvote you each time for being the most relevant comment on the page.
• Simulacra 5y ago
  I wish we could return to a time when people didn't care if you wore a mask or not, and EVERYTHING was not so politicized.
  • uoaei 5y ago
    You mean before the pandemic? I don't know how to make sense of this comment. The reason for the pandemic is poor institutional response for ultimately political reasons. I'm not sure de-politicizing a situation where an entire civilization has endured collective trauma is going to be easy. Don't the Stoics propose to work within your means and not to wish impossible things?
  • noahtallen 5y ago
    > people didn't care if you wore a mask or not I mean, imagine it was a more simple situation. What if we knew for a fact that if you wore a mask when you had the flu, then you wouldn’t spread it. In my opinion, it would be fantastic to have a healthy social expectation for an individual to limit their infectiousness while sick, instead of just going to work or school and blatantly spreading the flu. That would prevent a lot of sickness and even death! Having the flu sucks. COVID is similar, but it’s not as easy because it’s not clear when you could be spreading anything. COVID’s a sleeper, and sometimes it spreads with no symptoms. Super dangerous, eh? That’s why it makes sense to extend that first, simpler example so that we can be more cautious as a society towards something which has caused more than three million human beings to be terminated. Not only does it make sense, but I’d argue it’s even the moral option to be cautious until we can be more confident of our society’s combined immunity towards the disease.
• josephcsible 5y ago
  I find it interesting that the people who screamed "trust/listen to the CDC!" the loudest when the CDC's position was "everyone wear your mask and stay home as much as you can" are now the ones looking hardest for reasons to ignore/downplay/criticize the CDC's guidance.
  • rsfern 5y ago
    I think most probably have a more nuanced position than that. My personal hesitation is that people are just going to ignore the explicit condition of full vaccination. Worst case outcome could result in dragging the pandemic out and providing opportunity for new variants to develop. A concern closer to home is that this will increase risk for my parents, who have been hesitant about the mRNA vaccines and refuse J&J because is produced using a fetal cell line.
    • dalyons 5y ago
      Not sure why the rest of us should be required to continue to change our lives because of your parents (unfortunately) unfounded, anti-scientific personal views?
      • rsfern 5y ago
        That’s fair, my point is just that it’s a valid source of anxiety. And it’s not just my own parents. Like 30% of the US seems like they are not going to get a vaccine any time soon, and I worry that the guidance critically depends on the assumption that unvaccinated people will still mask up and distance. I don’t think it’s a very good assumption (would love to be proven wrong), and I don’t know what that means for the public health outlook of this new guidance.
        • Kye 5y ago
          Ideas are easy to be against. Right now, covid is just an idea to a lot of people. They don't know anyone who's gotten sick, or worse. It's harder to be against a person. Once a few people in their social circles get the vaccine and live to tell the tale, the hesitance will fall away. Polls are a snapshot and can turn quickly. That's why pollsters keep repeating them.
• infoseek12 5y ago
  I hope my thinking on this is overly pessimistic but I think wearing masks is going to be perhaps the biggest lightning rod in America for a while. It’s going to act as a proxy issue for many other sociopolitical and psychological issues that will be channeled into this conflict. I think the perhaps the best advice is entirely cliche. We are going to need to respect other people’s choices and try to be as patient and kind as we can.
  • admissionsguy 5y ago
    > It’s going to act as a proxy issue for many other sociopolitical and psychological issues that will be channeled into this conflict. That's the key observation, I think. It's not about the mask, it's about something else entirely, and I don't know what that is. Where I live (Sweden), there is little of that tension, and so masks weren't needed. > We are going to need to respect other people’s choices and try to be as patient and kind as we can. You cannot just stand by what amounts to religious zeal. It will affect you one way or another.
  • paul_f 5y ago
    The reason for the contention is because it is not simply one side wearing masks and the other side not. It is one side wearing masks and demanding the other side do as well.
    • thrwhizzle 5y ago
      That’s progressivism in a nutshell. It’s not just that these people have an opinion, but that all dissenting opinions must be eradicated. It’s particularly amusing on masks because of the endless talk of “follow the science.” I guess science is only to be followed when it fits the existing worldview. Now that the CDC is changing course it’s “we need to independently review this.”
• WalterBright 5y ago
  By opening the economy to vaccinated people, the non-vaccinated ones have a large incentive to get vaccinated.
  • Rebelgecko 5y ago
    I suspect that in practice they'll just lie about being vaccinated.
    • WalterBright 5y ago
      Since vaccines are readily available to walkups, if someone lies about being vaccinated, doesn't wear the mask, and contracts Covid, it's their own fault. At some point one must assign some personal responsibility.
    • postalrat 5y ago
      I haven't been vaccinated yet. I was planning around fall of this year to give the vaccine more time to be studied and also to (I assume) have better protection during the time covid-19 is likely to come back (the winter). Now I'll probably be vaccinated in the next week or so. Before this change I assumed there would be minuscule risk over the summer. Now it's been upgraded to a very slight risk. So might be worth the vaccine.
• anonymouse008 5y ago
  Can anyone offer guidance to one who has recovered from the actual Covid infection why they would receive the vaccine? Edit: This recent caveat included Lasting immunity found after recovery from Covid-19 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27125728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27125728
  • ambrose2 5y ago
    Some studies have shown immunity from infection may only last several weeks in some individuals, whereas vaccination has been shown to last much longer and more reliably.
    • jandrewrogers 5y ago
      This is misleading, it conflates the presence of antibodies with immunity. There is no reason to believe immunity is not durable; a strong immune response to related coronaviruses (e.g. SARS-CoV-1) lasts decades. Antibodies are only generated in response to infections, and disappear after the infection has passed at varying rates based on a number of factors. People have no antibodies circulating for most things they are immune to. It is expensive to produce antibodies unnecessarily.
    • Markoff 5y ago
      this is completely unfounded comment there are varous studies showing most of the infected people have immunity at least for 7-8 months, while we don't have any studies about how long last immunity after vaccination, for what's worth it can last less than immunity from infection yet people are shouting vaccine good, get it, get immunity and completely ignore the fact we should measure antibodies of vaccinated people while same people will shout oh if you were infected you are immune only for short time, I mean if you work for pharma lobby I can understand it, but are people really that trusting to pharma lobby, I remember also talking with doctors long before COVID how long last vaccination effect, they will tell you easily twice as long time as pharma company selling the vaccines, the reasons are obvious Study from Italy - only 3 out of 162 symptomatic infected didn't have antibodies after 8 months https://www.thelocal.it/20210511/covid-antibodies-last-8-months-after-infection-italian-study-finds/ https://www.thelocal.it/20210511/covid-antibodies-last-8-mon... Study from England - antibodies persist for minimum 7 months https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/04/previous-covid-19-may-cut-risk-reinfection-84 https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/04/previous...
• spfzero 5y ago
  I’m curious. Does the CDC say the same for people who have had Covid itself? I was not able to read the post (paywalled). Or people who test positive for antibodies?
  • pfranz 5y ago
    Doesn't the CDC (and many other organizations) recommend getting vaccinated even if you previously had Covid? Immunization from the vaccines are stronger than from natural immunity and the effect against other strains is better known. It's also been known to stop long-term symptoms from people who were still suffering from Covid. A bunch of well known people who have had Covid also later got vaccinated.
• decebalus1 5y ago
  Got some karma to burn so here goes: I disagree with this and the reasons are below. - it is inconsistent and imprecise. Which vaccine? There are a couple of variants now, vaccines have different levels of protection against different variants and the jury is still out on some new up-and-coming things coming out of India. It also makes you ask a couple of questions. Why should you wear the mask when using public transit or healthcare facilities? Wouldn't it be more dangerous or whatever if you're waiting for over an hour at the DMV? What about schools? We can vaccinate >12 yo now. Does this apply to them when in-person schooling? - it sends the wrong message in an already sensitive environment wrt to 'mask wearing'. When Texas lifted the mask mandate, people expected to not be wearing masks everywhere. Vaccinated people who only read headlines will walk into hospitals and get into arguments with the staff because 'that's what the CDC said'. - it is contrary to the current consensus from field epidemiologists [1]. - we need to keep in mind that the CDC has public health as a priority. Not your individual private health status. So their goal is to manage large scale outbreaks and not necessarily to make sure that you or your family is safe. This is why guidelines were along the lines of 'gatherings of more than 5 people'. That's not to ensure that those 5 people don't get infected but to ensure that out of the 5 that may, the infection rate will not drown the healthcare system. Anyway, about that, there are still (granted very very few) breakthrough cases. This means that for people who are immunocompromised or have undergone treatments considered risk factors, this guideline needs to raise an eyebrow or two. It is up to the individual to decide what to do. Risk of getting infected vs the convenience of NOT putting on a piece of cloth indoors, which may decrease that risk. - as any guidance requiring self-policing (vaccinated people) this is doomed to fail. I'm sure they ran the numbers and decided that from a public health standpoint the healthcare system will be able to handle small outbreaks here and there... - for some reason it feels like an attempt at creating an incentive for getting a vaccine. This type of thing has the same smell like the initial mask guideline which was intended to protect the supply of PPE. And to the hn-ers screaming 'but the science' 'but the hypocrisy', well it is possible to agree and disagree with the CDC at different times and on different issues. The world is not black/white are we're not in a cult (well, not all of us). [1] https://archive.is/NIq5q https://archive.is/NIq5q On a personal note, I will keep wearing the mask indoors although I'm vaccinated, thank you very much. Another thing I learned since last year is that wearing a mask gives me a level or privacy I only dreamed of. Also I did not get my annual cold. So, as a free American I'll keep wearing it indoors as long as I'm not breaking the law (note that when mask mandates are lifted it's not phrased as 'masks are illegals' but 'masks are not required') and as long as other countries with people flying in and out of are in deep COVID shit. Deep enough to spawn new and improved COVIDs. I'll also reserve the right to tell anyone to fuck right off if they feel strongly about me covering my face when 'look what the CDC is saying' 'but the science we all ignored now agrees with what we wanted to do last year hurr durr'.
• andrewseanryan 5y ago
  Ask yourself, why now? I work at a vaccine center and they are all slowing down. For those who aren’t “hesitant” but maybe haven’t received their shot for lack of urgency (convenience issues/complacency), going to a store full of people not wearing their mask may make them feel less secure and will provide urgency to get their shots. Interesting strategy but as the unvaccinated anti-maskers stop wearing their masks in public (no one is going to check their vax card), you are going to see outbreaks and death. Let’s see if it works to get more people vaccinated.
• chrischen 5y ago
  To an essential worker, how can they tell if someone is vaccinated or not? This is like when I got citizenship they told us all that as citizens we no longer needed to prove our citizenship (which may be true, but anyone could claim to be a citizen to get this right).
  • 99_00 5y ago
    If the essential worker was concerned wouldn't they have gotten vaccinated? In which case, what difference does it make if the other person was vaccinated or not?
    • chrischen 5y ago
      Essential worker can a) be an anti-vaxxer or b) unable to get the vaccine for various reasons (allergies). Now, if it’s a) and you’re arguing that maybe they deserve the risk of infection then that’s another argument.
      • galgalesh 5y ago
        Or c) still get sick even though they're vaccinated (bad luck or mutations) I'd be very cautious to say that anti-vaxxers "deserve" the risk. A large part of the anti-vaxxers I know are people who've been down on their luck for a long time, have lost all hope in society and the government, are isolated, and have been convinced by people who prey on those weaknesses.
• hunter-2 5y ago
  This is a bad idea and one that is going to backfire. The Indian variant of Covid is already spread out to over 44 countries, and although we don't have conclusive evidence yet, it is being suspected that the current crop of vaccines are not very effective againt this. In the past one month alone, more than a 100 medics (who are all fully vaccinated), have died - albeit due to a different vaccine and higher viral load in their workplace. It's a little premature to ask for masks to go off
• walrus01 5y ago
  I have a personal theory that humans do not fully understand death rate when it's spread out widely across many geographic areas. Let's say, for instance, that the covid19 death rate is about 450 people a day. It might be more or less than that right now, I haven't specifically checked (but I do recall that it's easily been 2000-3000 a day for some periods of time in very recent memory). But that might be 450 people where 1 dies in some town, another 2 die in another city, and so on, totaling 450. Whereas if you were to load a 747-400 with 450 people and fly it into the side of a mountain in one catastrophic absurd event every day of the week, for months, it would be shocking world stopping news. Why? What changed? It's the same number of dead people, right? Following this theory to a further extent, I think it helps to explain a lot about the people who believe covid19 is a "hoax" or a "scam". They don't see it, it isn't splashy and shocking, it's diffuse and spread out in such a way that their instinctual response is to go "just get on with your life...".
  • thathndude 5y ago
    I think your point cuts both ways. People can’t appreciate how big the US population is and the normal death rate. Every year around 2.8 million people die in the US from all causes. Around 7,500 people every day. So 450 a day isn’t that incredible of a number given the scale of the population. When an airplane crashes, the reaction is less about loss of 100-300 lives, but the way in which it happens. If a loaded 747 crashed every day, the negative reaction wouldn’t be primarily because people died (that happens en masse daily), but because the safest mode of travel just became unsafe.
    • walrus01 5y ago
      That is a good point. Somewhat similar, we seem to accept in the range of 10,000-11,000 drunk driving deaths a year as fairly normal [1]. Because it is, for the most part, a widely spread out set of events with a few cars crashing by themselves, or into one other car... Yet we still drive everywhere. But if you ask people, someone might tell you that they're more nervous flying (despite statistics clearly showing that per hour of driving, or per hour riding in a 777, you're far more likely to die in the car). 1: https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
• Markoff 5y ago
  I feel like mandating masks (in US) at this point is quite pointless, pretty much everyone who wants to protect themselves can get vaccinated (and they most likely did already), so they don't need to worry about serious symptoms and people who don't wanna get vaccinated are clearly not worried about them so why force any of these groups to wear masks? Scared people are protected, not scared don't want protection and are prepare to bear consequences, the group of people who would like to get vaccinated but they can't for medical reasons is extremely small and I don't see similar restrictions because of other risks. So why even bother with recommending to mask anywhere? This makes sense only in countries where you can't get immediately vaccinated (pretty much everywhere outside US and few other countries like Israel).
  • TheCoelacanth 5y ago
    I agree, but not until mid-June. Vaccine appointments weren't widely available for everyone until late April, so for people who got their first shot then , add four weeks until the second shot plus two weeks for the vaccine to be fully effective, many people won't be fully vaccinated until mid-June.
• o_p 5y ago
  Im not vaccinating period. If you try to force me with this bs Im just gonna bribe the nurse here sign this paper and good fucking bye.
  • bart__ 5y ago
    What is the reason you don't want a vaccine? I'm honestly just curious
  • jmull 5y ago
    What does this have to do with forcing you to do anything?
• bourgwaletariat 5y ago
  Okay dang, here's what I'm curious about. People walking around without a mask. How are they going to know who is vaccinated and who isn't? Say someone who isn't vaccinated is walking around without a mask. What is the officer's reasonable suspicion to stop them and ask for ID or ask for "papers?" How will this be enforced? How are they going to stop all the non-vaccinated people from walking around without a mask? Are they just wagging the dog with this because Fauci's in the hot seat?
• nikolay 5y ago
  When the India variant is in more than 50 countries (and counting), and the variant roulette is on full speed in India. We desperately believe that the vaccine is better protection than an N95 mask! Utter nonsense! It's a matter of Biden showing he's doing something positive, but the vaccination is not something he can take credit for anyway. When you mix politics into healthcare, the result is often disastrous!
• krankthat 5y ago
  It's still unclear whether or not masks helped reduce the spread of COVID-19. https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/
  • sgift 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Policy_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Policy_Research > The Swiss Policy Research site has been criticized for spreading conspiracy theories including claims that QAnon was a psyop of the FBI.[5] and theories relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2][6] German public broadcasterTagesschau calls SPR a propaganda tool[7] and Media Bias/Fact Check says the site is "a Moderate Conspiracy website based on the promotion of unproven claims."[4]
    • josephcsible 5y ago
      Your comment seems to be a textbook example of an ad hominem.
      • HDMI_Cable 5y ago
        An ad hominem would be attacking the person making the reply itself, not the agency reporting on the issue.
    • krankthat 5y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27226751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27226751
• ngc248 5y ago
  Most of the problems happened coz governments world over believed the WHO who in turn were compromised by the CCP. Don't governments/people believe in "Trust but verify" anymore. Everyone parroted the same grey truths which CCP was feeding the world. Also the election year was another factor in politicizing each and everything.
• applepple 5y ago
  This is horrible... And just like that, now the government can introduce laws based on people's identity/group. Well at least it doesn't affect me personally... I didn't get the vaccine but I identify as a vaccinated person. Deep down, I feel that I'm vaccinated.
• didibus 5y ago
  It does feel a little soon, since there are still big unknown in terms of variants and how effective it is for people with weakened immune systems, and how long the effective protection lasts. That said, I think what people miss is that CDC is not making recommendations for you not to catch Covid, it's making recommendations in the aggregate of what seems like acceptable risk for the pandemic. So that means some vaccinated might still get Covid, but most won't or will with minor symptoms that is not life threatening. In that regard they probably want to encourage people to go back and stimulate the economy.
• brobdingnagians 5y ago
  > How to trust that unvaccinated neighbors will wear masks when they should? I find this sentiment curious. It seems to imply that some people would rather that everyone suffer masking than accept that some will not be masked against recommendation. It bleeds over into other things. If we see our neighbour doing something we don't like, we think "there should be a law against that!" There is a lot of distrust and desire to control the behaviour of others in our society. It is a very common human attribute and reminds me of the famous quote from Paradise Lost: "Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n" Sometimes, it is better to accept that others will do things that we think are stupid or even immoral, but be grateful that they will let us do things that they think are stupid. It takes empathy and humility to accept that other people disagree with us. The desire for control is a dangerous beast.
• Slippery_John 5y ago
  As an American abroad I'm very jealous. I've strongly considered flying back to the states to get vaccinated.
• bussierem 5y ago
  > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. Why doesn't this article fall under this category?
• mrkramer 5y ago
  Freedom at last.
• tmaly 5y ago
  I have been heads down working on some things, so this is new to me. I am curious, how will someone prove they are vaccinated?
• gdubs 5y ago
  My biggest question right now is with my kids who are 7 and under. But also just kids in general. Mainly I’m wondering what kind of evolutionary pressure will be put onto the virus in a population where young children represent a larger and larger target for the virus as adults become vaccinated. Not fear-mongering. It just seems like we still don’t have a good explanation of why kids have (mostly) been spared, and so we don’t seem to have a good explanation of why that would continue to be the case. Also, low risk != low risk, and in places like Brazil, there has been heartbreak with babies dying of Covid, etc.
  • josephcsible 5y ago
    > low risk != low risk What does this mean?
    • gdubs 5y ago
      Autocorrected ‘low risk != no risk’
• kwhitefoot 5y ago
  How is a non-vaccinated person supposed to be able to tell if the person breathing on them has been vaccinated?
  • Vecr 5y ago
    You don't, if you do need to be around other people, get the vaccine and/or wear a respirator. Or don't do either, you have a choice.
• qubit000 5y ago
  Someone behind the scenes must be pulling the strings at the CDC as this is terrible advice considering all vaccines are far from being 100% effective. Additionally it takes at least 2wks after inoculation for the vaccine to work and there is no definitive answer on how long the efficacy lasts. All of this combined with the fact that millions of Americans refuse to be vaccinated will serve as prime reservoir for the virus to spread. It was rather troubling when CDC first stated masks were unnecessary but this recent announcement is criminally negligent, on par with Boeing/FAA publicly stating 737 Max was safe even knowing full well there was high probability of another crash.
• MyHypatia 5y ago
  I am glad that things are returning to normal and masks are now optional. I am also really glad that masks have become socially acceptable. I plan to keep wearing a mask on planes and public transportation so I don't get as many colds. I hope it stops being a political thing.
• stuaxo 5y ago
  In the UK (prob not a good example?) masks aren't worn outside but are in shops. Actually it might not be that bad.. on many other things we are terrible though.