1) There are a lot of questions about how fully vaccinated individuals should behave. I don't have good solutions either, but I have some thoughts. First of all, we are seeing more and more data about how well vaccination works in a real live setting. There are recent studies...
2) ...from Israel (nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…; thelancet.com/journals/lance…) and Scotland (papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…) showing high vaccine effectiveness in the population. That is just awesome and a reason to celebrate for all of us. On the other side you need to keep in mind....
3)...that vaccination, while highly effective, doesn't remove all risk. There are cases of symptomatic infection even after two vaccinations, keep that in mind. These cases might be mild, but they can occur. The protection you can expect from being vaccinated is driven....
4)....by many factors. How well the vaccine works in general is an important one. How well the vaccine works in an individual is another important one (not all people respond similarly to vaccination). Another important factor is how much virus is around. If virus circulation....
5)...in a given population is very high, your baseline chance of getting infected is very high. If that chance is cut down by 95% that's great. But there may still be a good chance that you catch the virus. If virus circulation is low, your baseline chance is also low. If you...
6)...cut that risk again by 95%, you end up with basically no risk at all. And the same applies to risky behavior. And that is one reason, why we need to still distance and mask up. However, at least in my book there are exceptions. And those exceptions have again to do with...
7)...how high your risk is. Interactions of people who are fully vaccinated with other people who are fully vaccinated (or immune due to previous infection) likely come with a very low risk for everybody involved. That's why I am not necessarily an opponent of e.g.....
8)....the green passport that Israel is using. There may be ethical concerns about that which have been discussed elsewhere, but I think it also is a strong incentive to get vaccinated. I know people have very strong opinions about this, and we need to be cautious, even...
9)....when vaccinated people interact. I think mass gatherings, even when vaccinated masked people are involved would currently be a bad idea. But e.g. two fully vaccinated elderly couples that have dinner together? A vaccinated HCW who is now....
10).....visiting vaccinated elderly parents in a 'normal' way? I am not sure if I would be opposed to that. I think we need to be cautious and need to stay vigilant about risk. But we should also allow people who have immunity to at least normalize some of their interactions...
11)....either other immune individuals. I don't think this should apply to any public rules and public guideline. For now, everybody should wear a mask in a professional setting, in public transport etc. But I think we should....
12)....start to get back to normal, in little steps, were risk is low, especially when it comes to interactions between immune individuals. Let's hope the variants don't throw us a curveball.
13) I know, this will start a heated discussion. But one worth having. Stay safe!
14) PS: Yes, its complex.
15) Update! The CDC guidelines for this are now out. And they say more or less the same as my tweets 😉
cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…
cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…
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