When can I stop wearing a mask?
Hold on to your mask (s) for the foreseeable future. At present, there are several unknowns that make mask wearing and social distance important to protect the wider community.
First, scientists don’t know how Covid-19 vaccines can protect against asymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (as explained above). There are some promising signs, but the research remains incomplete. Researchers also don’t know how long Covid-19 vaccines can protect people from the virus.
Scientists will also keep a close eye on how evolutionary changes in the virus, or variants, affect the effectiveness of vaccines. Researchers have already found that the efficacy of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is diminished in South Africa, where the B1351 variant is present.
However, the most important factor may be the degree to which eligible adults accept the vaccine. Children can spread the disease but are not eligible for the vaccine; some people may be too immunocompromised to use it; and others may face bureaucratic barriers to vaccination.
What’s the point of getting the vaccine if I still have to wear a mask?
Consider wearing a mask and social distancing as a continuum of risk mitigation strategies, which are being implemented as scientists conduct research, more and more people are getting vaccinated and the prevalence of Covid-19 is declining.
For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said people can gather indoors, without masks, with other fully vaccinated people. People are considered “fully vaccinated” two weeks after receiving their last vaccine. Those same people then need to be conscientious about social distance and wearing masks in public, as they could potentially transmit the disease to the wider community.
The hope is that as more and more people are vaccinated, fewer people will develop severe cases of Covid-19 and that the pressure on the health system will diminish with the prevalence of the disease.
“Hopefully we can get a majority of the population vaccinated,” said Dr. Bruce Y Lee, professor of health policy at City University of New York’s School of Public Health. “That’s when we can start talking about getting normal.”
When will we have these answers?
Research on the extent to which vaccines protect against transmission continues and is promising, but incomplete. The vaccines are unlikely to provide complete or “sterilizing” protection. Only a handful of vaccines can make that claim, including the smallpox vaccine, for example. However, if a vaccine significantly reduced transmission, it would be very good news for the world’s ability to control the virus.
Under normal circumstances, these kinds of questions could have been answered in years of clinical vaccine studies. In this emergency, stopping the disease was a more important goal, and the vaccines available do it very effectively.
“We would probably know as more and more people are getting vaccinated sometime in mid-September,” said August.
Importantly, however, vaccines do not necessarily have to provide complete protection to help fight the pandemic. “When everyone is vaccinated, there is less virus around,” said August.
