[sacomo]

Vaccines still aren't 100%. This is bad advice from the CDC. It will only lead to anti-masker/vaxxers using this as an excuse for not wearing a mask. Even the fully vaccinated should be wearing a mask around other people. 94%/97% is not 100%.

edit: Japan is a good example for how masks have drastically reduced the number of infected due to mask culture. Japan has half the US population and still isn't vaccinating the general public. Even the spikes in Japan are tiny compared to the US due to mask usage. Japan is mostly open, trains are still packed, shops are still filled with people. Masks work and should still be worn once vaccinated.

edit 2: good luck.

[remarkEon]

No.

The continual insistence by some - many in prominent leadership positions - that nothing changes after you get vaccinated is what was hurting confidence that the vaccine works. If it works, why would I have to act like it doesn't? People can make their own judgements about their personal risk, but I'm not waiting until some arbitrary effectivity point (99%? 99.9%? 99.99%?) to go back to normal. I'll be in the gym tonight for 2 hours without a mask for the first time in well over a year.

[shados]

> If it works, why would I have to act like it doesn't?

This vaccine is -ridiculously- effective, which definitely changed things a bit (well, a lot). It looks like people who have it are pretty much immune, the chances of transmitting even if you DO get the virus is extremely low, etc. We're lucky.

It could have gone a very different way though. If we had a vaccine that's much less effective (eg: like the flu's), we'd have to rely on the power of statistics at scale to get rid of the pandemic. So yeah, that would have meant you'd have to get vaccine and still act like you haven't for a while until more people take it.

Thank <whatever deity> things turned out better though, since its pretty obvious that people wouldn't have been able to comprehend that scenario.

[dlp211]

When they made those statements, it was nothing changes for now. We were always going to get to this point where enough people became vaccinated and others had enough of a natural immunity that we would start to open up, take off the masks, and get to normal. You couldn't do that when 10% of people had the vaccine dose. Did people really think that the government was going to forever make people where masks and to social distance and all the other measures?

[josephcsible]

Even if only one person in the world were vaccinated, why should that one person not get to stop wearing a mask and social distancing?

[scotuswroteus]

The average person can expect to be in three to four car accidents during their lifetime. I'm still driving around (vaxxed, not belligerent, happy to mask for the time being).

[sacomo]

That is great. But still, vaccinated people shouldn't be told that they cannot get infected. There is this weird misconception floating around that just because we get vaccinated we are somehow immune to covid-19. That is a dangerous and misguided belief.

[KoftaBob]

The CDC, FDA, governments, etc have said constantly that the vaccines have a 90-95% efficacy rate.

Anyone who somehow interpreted that as "completely immune" has bad reading comprehension.

This sounds like a strawman argument that you're making, I don't know where you're getting that there's a misconception of the vaccine equating to 100% immunity. No one said that.

[jfengel]

Right now the primary question is about the comprehension, or lack of same, on the part of anti-vaxers. The actual truth about infections is almost completely irrelevant here. The question is, what tactic will keep us all safest when the primary threat comes from people who are clinically stupid?

That's purely a psychology question, and I honestly don't know what the answer is. But it's worth noting that it's pretty much all about strawmen, and which strawmen the anti-vax crowd can be manipulated into believing.

[caddemon]

J&J definitely does not have >90% efficacy

[tehlike]

You might find this more useful:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/of-fully-vaccinated-israelis-o...

[infamouscow]

I thought was actually mattered was hospitalizations and deaths. Why is measuring infections relevant?

[unanswered]

According to the public perception, getting COVID is a death sentence. That's all there is to it.

[sacomo]

The primary goal is to not contract covid-19.

[kelnos]

That may be your goal, but that is not the goal of public health policy. If complete eradication was the goal, we would be wearing masks, social distancing, and requiring businesses to operate at lower capacity for many, many years to come. That is just not an acceptable state of life for the vast majority of people in the US. You may not agree with that, but that's just how things are.

[weezin]

So what is an appropriate amount of cases to go back to normal?

[infamouscow]

Nothing is 100% certain. If you don't want to risk it then stay at home.

[jes]

Nothing is 100% certain.

I don't think this is true in all cases.

[gsich]

Death is.

[josephcsible]

No it isn't. Enoch and Elijah never died.

[krapp]

Enoch and Elijah are fictional characters.

In reality, death is 100% certain.

[kelnos]

Vouched for your (dead) comment because I think it has value in the discussion, even though I think you're missing the whole picture.

Unfortunately the US political and social climate means this CDC advice has to come now, not later, when it'll probably be more scientifically appropriate. Demand for vaccines has been dropping for weeks, and vaccine-hesitant people need to see that there are clear benefits to their day-to-day lives if they get vaccinated.

Vaccines are definitely not 100%, but I think the hope is that relaxing restrictions for vaccinated people will increase demand for the vaccine enough to be worth the risk. While this recommendation may not be good science, I suspect it's good public policy, given that we are all a bunch of emotional humans who don't always do what's best for ourselves when presented only with logic.

There are commenters in other subthreads here who have said that this news made them go and sign up for a vaccine appointment. So it is having the desired effect. We'll see if it has enough of the desired effect.

[KoftaBob]

The point was to get the risk/velocity of spread to a much smaller and manageable amount.

Anything after that, if it's still too much risk for someone because they're only comfortable with 100% certainty, they can choose to stay at home.

We're not going to keep society on hold until we reach 100% eradication of a virus, just to appease neurotic people.