You have been fully vaccinated against the corona virus – now what? Don’t expect to take off your mask and resume normal activities right away.
That will be a disappointment, if not a shock, to many people.
In Miami, 81-year-old Noemi Caraballo received her second dose on Tuesday and is looking forward to seeing friends, resuming fitness classes and running errands, after nearly a year of extreme caution and even ordering groceries online.
“Her sentence 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 haven’t changed their guidelines yet: for now, people should at least follow the same rules as everyone else about wearing a mask, keeping a 6-foot distance, and avoiding crowds – even after they’ve done. have received their second vaccination dose.
Vaccines in use so far require two doses, and experts say not to wake up after the first dose.
“You ask a very logical question,” replied Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, when a 91-year-old California woman recently asked if she and her vaccinated friends could resume their mahjong games.
During that webcast exchange, Fauci could only refer to the recommendations of the CDC, who so far are mum about exceptions for vaccinated people getting together. “Hold on,” he told the woman, saying he would expect updates to the guidelines as more people got the coveted photos.
What experts also need to learn: The vaccines are highly effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19, especially serious illness and death, but no one knows yet how well they block the spread of the coronavirus.
It’s great when the vaccine means that someone who would otherwise have been hospitalized is just sniffing or not even having any symptoms. But “the looming question,” Fauci said at a White House briefing on coronavirus last week, is whether a person infected despite vaccination can unknowingly infect someone else.
Investigations are underway to find out, and hints are starting to appear. Fauci pointed to recent research from Spain showing that the more coronavirus an infected person harbors – the so-called viral load – the more contagious they are. This is not surprising, as with other diseases.
Some preliminary findings from Israel suggest that people infected after the first vaccination dose, when only partially protected, had smaller viral loads than unvaccinated people who became infected. That’s encouraging if the findings hold up. Israel has vaccinated much of its population, and scientists around the world are looking at how the outbreak is responding as those vaccinations increase.
It is also critical to see whether the vaccines protect against new, mutated versions of the virus that are spreading rapidly in some countries, added Dr. Walter Orenstein, an infectious disease expert at Emory University. He is vaccinated and closely follows CDC guidelines.
There are practical reasons. “It’s hard to tell who got vaccinated and who didn’t if you just walk through the grocery store,” says immunologist E. John Wherry of the University of Pennsylvania.
And experts like Wherry are repeatedly asked, Yes, there are rules for being in public, but what’s safe for grandma to do at home, with family, or close friends after being vaccinated?
Not everyone’s immune system is boosted equally by vaccines – so someone with cancer or the frail elderly may not get as much protection as a robust 70-something.
But most people should “feel more confident about going shopping, or seeing your grandchildren, or hugging your daughter,” Wherry said.
That’s because the chances of a fully vaccinated person becoming seriously ill, although not zero, are low.
“Friends who come to dinner, we should still try to follow the guidelines,” added Wherry. “You never know who has been compromised, where the vaccine may not work very well.”
What if the fully vaccinated person is exposed to someone who is infected? The CDC recently relaxed those rules: no quarantine as long as the vaccinated person shows no symptoms and it has been at least two weeks but no more than three months since their second dose.
Get on a plane?
Vaccinated or not, the CDC still insists on essential travel only.
International travel is an even more difficult prospect. Expect countries that already have different quarantine and testing requirements to come up with different post-vaccination guidelines – especially as multiple types of vaccines, some better proven than others, are used around the world. There is also concern about the transport of those worrying mutations from one country to another.
Stay tuned for updates to the advice as more people get vaccinated. Meanwhile, don’t underestimate how important it is for vaccinees to feel less anxious when they run errands or go to work while still following public health measures, said Dr. Luciana Borio, a former Food and Drug Administration scientist.
Even with a trip to the grocery store, “there was always the concern about, ‘Was that the contact that would infect me?'” Borio said. “That’s a very powerful change in someone’s living situation.”