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Okay, I’m Vaccinated. Can I Do All the Things?
How to be safe — but still enjoy life — during this strange time when some are vaccinated and many still aren’t
Last week, I took to social media to ask people what their biggest questions were about life after the Covid-19 vaccine. Within minutes, my post had dozens of comments. “When can I hug my dad? That’s all I want to do,” one person wrote. “Indoor dining at a restaurant? Airplane travel?” another asked. I also got questions about whether it’s safe to congregate indoors with other vaccinated people, whether vaccinated people can spread Covid-19 without knowing it, and what it means if some family members are vaccinated and others aren’t.
These are all excellent questions. Unfortunately, there aren’t clear, black-and-white answers to many of them. We still don’t have the data we need to answer some questions definitively while others will depend on a person’s situation and risk tolerance. Nevertheless, I called five people — two infectious disease physicians, an immunologist, and two public health scientists — to get their thoughts. They emphasized that we shouldn’t think of vaccination as a carte blanche; instead, we should think of it as an additional (and very helpful) layer of protection. The more layers we have, the safer we will be.
