A little thread on why I’ll still be opting to wear a mask indoors for the foreseeable future, despite the #yegcc decision. (I’m 51, female, no “underlying health conditions”, fully vaccinated as per June 18th and fully immunized—two weeks post-second-dose—as per July 2nd.)
The Delta variant (and close cousins) is the world’s current COVID worry, as it’s more transmissible and because it has some “immune escape” features. Scientists/public health experts have been gathering data on how it affects the fully vaccinated, & this is the emerging picture:
1) You can be fully vaccinated and still contract the Delta variant: boo!
2) But…if you are fully vaccinated and contract the Delta variant, you tend to be asymptomatic: yay!
2) But…if you are fully vaccinated and contract the Delta variant, you tend to be asymptomatic: yay!
https://twitter.com/ariehkovler/status/1408069018766905354
3) It’s possible for fully vaccinated infected people to transmit the Delta variant to non-vaccinated and partially vaccinated fellow citizens: boo!
https://twitter.com/jhengstler/status/1408116863515561987
4) However, fully vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant are almost certainly both less infectious and infectious for less long, making it vanishingly unlikely for them to be superspreaders. Yay!
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1351483423173521408
The upside to all this: my life can indeed change as per July 2nd, despite Delta. I’ll be able to do things that I’ve been refraining from doing for the past year and a half, because I won't be worried about getting sick myself, and I'll know I can't be a superspreader.
The downside: if I want to avoid infecting unvaccinated and partially vaccinated people, July 2nd can’t be my “freedom day” in the sense that I suddenly get to pretend there’s no pandemic. I still have to try not to catch COVID, and try not to spread it.
For me, at least for now, this is going to mean doing all kinds of fun things indoors, but not taking my mask off to do any of them unless I can be sure that everybody else in the room is similarly two weeks past their second vaccine dose.
At some point I’m sure I’ll decide it’s time to take the risk of passing along an asymptomatic COVID infection to an unvaccinated or partly vaccinated person, and take off the mask indoors. I don’t know yet what will cause me to be okay with that, but I’m sure it will happen.
(For what it's worth, I even already know which restaurant it's gonna be.)
It’s not time for that yet, though. Not when there are so many people left without a second dose who still DESPERATELY WANT it.
And honestly? I'm totally okay with that for now. There are so, so many exciting indoor things I'll still be able to start doing again on July 2nd with a mask on, and I plan to enjoy every one of them. /end
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