Yup. It is not a scientific study, but I started washing my hands before I eat about 10 years ago and the number of colds I had each year decreased dramatically. Thinking back, I would shake hands, touch doors, touch menus, etc and then touch my food … not a surprise I had more colds.
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As one who understands this crowd pretty well, I’d like to respectfully comment on this. I think a lot of hesitancy with vaccines from this crowd is due to seeing others get vaccinated yet still having to wear masks (which they despise) in too many situations and not really get back to normal right away. They see the CDC guidance and roll their eyes thinking, “even if I get vaccinated, I still can’t control my own life, what’s the point”. They cherry pick other news stories like ‘No dancing at weddings in DC’. And they disengage, becoming more rebellious and more skeptical of what any authorities or anyone else has to say on covid. It then can lead to a point where they don’t want to be vaccinated just because others are pushing them to, as a middle finger to the whole process.
I truly think it would have been more effective for CDC and the administration to say something like, “If you’re fully vaccinated, thank you for helping yourself and your community, now go live your life unrestricted and get rid of your masks.” There is such little practical reason for vaccinated people to mask, at all. Any tiny bit of risk there is is greatly overshadowed by the hesitancy that’s been created. So much mask wearing after vaccination sends the message to some that we don’t really believe the vaccine works. Seeing our fully vaccinated president sitting with no one around him on a zoom call with a mask on is not helpful for many of my political ilk. They see that and see no end to this and that it’s becoming less about science and more about control, and no point to getting vaccinated if they’re already unconcerned about health risks. Not necessarily my specific personal thoughts, but many similar to me do think this way.
Not saying one opinion is totally right or wrong on all this, but I do have insight into how this group’s minds work on this topic. The last president also messed up badly with the other extreme on masks, and they have been stigmatized ever since. The larger problem to me is that different groups in society just don’t know how to talk to or understand each other. I’m as guilty of it as anyone.
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This does make sense to me, thank you. So maybe better messaging might be to spell out that masks and restrictions need to be in place to protect the unvaccinated until X percentage of the country gets the vaccine? That might encourage them to get vaccinated to be rid of restrictions.
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For me, the biggest issue with ditching the masks for the vaccinated is kids who can’t be vaccinated. I will continue to wear my mask, even though I’m vaccinated, because my kids are not. They won’t wear one if I don’t wear one.
I’m around and a part of many of these groups of people as well and in my area, some of those you are talking about barely follow the mask mandates anyway. If it’s not a store that required it they don’t wear one. There are local stores that allow no masks, despite our state mask mandate. Most of the comments I see are that they have been living free of masks and have been fine, so they don’t need the vaccine to have permission to have their freedoms.
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That makes a lot of sense. Since there is no way to know whether someone is vaccinated by looking at them I just thought it made sense to keep masks until enough people are vaccinated. I’m fully vaccinated but happy to wear a mask when I don’t know the status of the people I’m with. Anything to be be done with this!
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I could see a huge benefit to Biden announcing something like, “Once a state has reached 70% vaccination, the CDC will recommend that all restrictions be lifted. Once the country reaches 80% vaccinated, or all states reach 70%, all federal restrictions will be lifted.” And make it a big push to get to 70%.
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True. There’s that subgroup too, who will just disregard any of the rules. They won’t consider vaccination until there’s a vax passport on something they really want to do.
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The former … absolutely. The latter … I disagree … I think you are quite understanding of other views.
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It’s hard enough for stores to enforce masking though, without them having to check vaccination cards. And then everyone would need less forgable vaccination cards as well.
I’m thinking at the state level here. Or maybe even “your county and all adjacent counties” could create a domino effect.
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I know this is not your line of thinking and you are reporting on the thinking of others, but this is extremely flawed logic. It is like saying I tossed a coin 10 times and it came up head each time so the 11th toss will also be heads.
Somewhat related, a guy I know through business is currently on a ventilator and in a medically induced coma (as a result of Covid) after avoid Covid for over a year.
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This bugs my DH and DS SOOOO much!!! They hate still having to wear a mask even though they are fully vaccinated. I can sympathize too, it’s frustrating. I wish there was a way to get the majority vaccinated so we could all breathe easier… w/o masks 
I like @Jeff_AZ suggestions; any bit to help.
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I can’t remember if this was already mentioned here - but that is exactly what PA’s governor has announced. Mask mandate will be lifted once 70% of adults are vaccinated.
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The comments I find most perplexing are those who say something like “These new CDC guidelines for vaccinated people are ridiculous! I’m not doing that!” when I’m pretty certain they weren’t following the CDC guidelines prior to being vaccinated either. So, not really the target audience for CDC guidelines anyway?
I don’t follow the CDC guidelines perfectly, but I try to understand and follow the intent as much as possible. And default to following them unless I have a fairly valid reason not to.
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For me, it is important because no vaccine is 100% and I have a young person at home that cannot be vaccinated yet. None of us want to carry it home to him.
So until we can increase the number that are vaccinated and/or young people are included in the EUA we will mask up in crowds, but have been happy to start eating out at restaurants instead of relying solely on take out!
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That won’t ever happen in Florida. I think the mayor of Orlando has said something like this but that’s just one county in the state. And it’s a county that ppl visit from all over the world. Having 70% vaccinated there doesn’t help the state. I guess it does help visitors though?
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There is probably a segment of the population you won’t reach either way. But then there is another more quiet segment who is just listening to what other people around them say, and if they hear a bunch of the complaining about austere restrictions, they may tend to follow that crowd. Whereas if there was loud and clear messaging about a clear path to return to normalcy, they might go along that way instead.
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It’ll be interesting to watch for sure - I think the latest numbers are that so far 52% of eligible people have had at least one dose? So we’ll see if we get to the final 18%, and if we do, when.
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To give the flip point of view … when I saw the new CDC guidance, I said to DW that I was upset with the CDC for caving to political pressure and issuing relaxed mask guidelines too soon.
I think the new guidelines were premature and should not have been issued until the vaccination totals were higher (and case counts lower) before these new guidelines were implemented. (In some areas of the country, I’m ok with it but not others based on current case counts)
In my opinion the new guidelines give people a false sense of safety when (a) case counts in many areas of the country are still high, (b) people in many areas have not had enough time to get their second dose since some areas only opened up vaccine availability in the past few weeks and © children do not have the option to be vaccinated.
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That’s exactly the message here in my state. We have to wear masks until 2/3 of the state is vaccinated and then no more masks. We’re still seeing declines in vaccinations though. I think the bigger issue is still access. I know several people who said they wouldn’t get it, but then their work had an event and they just had to walk down to the cafeteria to get it or they were grocery shopping and the pharmacy had some immediately available and they got it.
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It’s all about the fence sitters now.
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