COVID- 19 Back to normal?

I thought this tweet by Dr. Jonathan Reiner was interestig. Dr. Reiner is a regular guest on CNN. The activity that I'm most interested in is "have vaccinated friends visit you."  We have Mother's Day at our house every year, with around 30 people (we have a large family in the area.)  We didn't have it last year. My inclination is to skip it this year, just to be on the safe side. Several members of our family have had COVID, and we'll see how many have been vaccinated. 

It's going to fell strange getting back to "normal."  I plan on wearing a mask well into the remainder of the year, at least. 

I'd say 30 is still too large, but if everyone is vaccinated, you can expand your circle from what it had been, maybe every other week get together with a different group of 10 vaccinated people max..while still taking precautions.  And consider some people may lie about being vaccinated.  They are still saying kids won't be vaccinated for another year...with 12+ starting sooner.

When its warmer, do more outdoor gatherings with small groups of kids in an open space and vaccinated adults.

I'm vaccinated...10 days to go until I am at max immunity.  But, I am with someone daily who has sabotaged every chance he has had to get the vaccine (ie waited 2 days after getting a text appointments were available, refusing to check various sites for availability even after I found open slots with CVS....)...

before variants max immunity was about 95%...that could be going down,  they still don't know if vaccinated people can actually pick up and transmit the virus...so if I were to do more 'normal' things....I could pick up the virus and pass it to him.....

and if you get together with vaccinated adults....and the virus quietly spreads among the group....it is possible they could spread it to their children and others who haven't had a chance to be vaccinated.

I've put somethings off...I'm waiting to get my car serviced until I can drop it off and wait outside for it to be done, some non urgent medical appointments...that I will start doing soon.

One guest is too large if the one person is infected. 30 might be ok if all are vaccinated and nobody is infected.  In other words, there is no magic number.

One question is if a vaccinated person can transmit to another person. I believe the latest info is that its inconclusive.  So you pay your money and you take your chance.

One guest with a vaccine resistant variant could ruin your whole day.

Yup,that's my thinking.  Interestengly,  the members of our family that have had COVID are the younger generation, in their middle and late 20's. Our niece's husband is in his late 20's and had COVID. He ended up with respiratory problems and has to go to therapy. They live in Boston and always come down for Mother's Day. His parents live in Boston and come down as well. They both had COVID and were able to get the monoclonal antibodies and are fine. 

eta- I'm looking forward to hugging our grandchildren. That's been the tough part for us. 

I have a friend who says because he’s had it, he doesn’t need to get vaccinated because he is immune. He claims that they did an antibody test and it showed a 90% immunity. This was a few months ago, and he had it back last year early on. 

I still mask up around him. I don’t buy it. 

Today was two weeks since I had my second shot. I think I've "worried a lot less" as suggested by Dr. Reiner. I'll still wear a mask and try to avoid places with a lot of people. By the end of summer I'll probably feel more comfortable about getting on a plane - with a mask. 

blackcat said:

I have a friend who says because he’s had it, he doesn’t need to get vaccinated because he is immune. He claims that they did an antibody test and it showed a 90% immunity. This was a few months ago, and he had it back last year early on. 

I still mask up around him. I don’t buy it. 

 this part: 

it showed a 90% immunity.

is almost assuredly crap. 

This is about the movies.(Dr. Reiner said going to the movies is ok.)  We miss the NY theater. 

blackcat said:

I have a friend who says because he’s had it, he doesn’t need to get vaccinated because he is immune. He claims that they did an antibody test and it showed a 90% immunity. This was a few months ago, and he had it back last year early on. 

I still mask up around him. I don’t buy it. 

 antibodies tend to eventually wear off, what may offer long term protection are T CELLS.  the body keeps t cells which somehow activate the immune system to recognize the same disease (covid19) and quickly attack it with residual germ fighter cells.

some people lose antibodies quickly, some have them for a very long time

Was with an acquaintance a couple of days ago who had Covid in the early days of the pandemic.  He had a blood test recently showing that he still had antibodies.  

One thing to add, you aren't protected right away by the vaccine.  It seems some people believe they get the vaccine one day and they are free to do whatever the next day.  It takes up to two weeks after the second vaccine to reach full protection.

I'll continue to wear a mask  in the supermarket. Planning to hang out with a vaccinated friend here and there in my garden without a mask. 

I'm gonna eye the stats for a while.  Would like to see confirmation in the U.S.of the really good data coming out of Israel and the U.K. about the effectiveness of the vaccine.  A prolonged continuation of the seemingly steady drop in hospitalizations would be encouraging too.  But the idea of sitting in a restaurant with people who have not been and may be refusing to get vaccinated rubs me the wrong way.  I think I'm a ways away from in restaurant dining.

Covid brain, pandemic brain, is real...

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/what-pandemic-doing-our-brains/618221/

I went to the movies three weeks ago.  It was great.

4 other people in the theater.

CDC's fully vaccinated guidance:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/08/health/covid-19-vaccine-cdc-guidelines-fully-vaccinated/index.html

The CDC says fully vaccinated people can:

• Visit other vaccinated people indoors without masks or physical distancing

• Visit indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without masks or physical distancing, if the unvaccinated people are at low risk for severe disease.

• Skip quarantine and testing if exposed to someone who has Covid-19 but are asymptomatic, but should monitor for symptoms for 14 days

However, people who are fully vaccinated still need to take precautions in many scenarios. The guidelines say fully vaccinated people must:

• Wear a mask and keep good physical distance around the unvaccinated who are at increased risk for severe Covid-19, or if the unvaccinated person has a household member who is at higher risk

• Wear masks and physically distance when visiting unvaccinated people who are from multiple households.

CDC seems to be crafting the guidelines to make people happy, not to allow best practice.  People are revolting, it seems by giving them SOME normalcy, CDC hopes people will be more complaint with mask wearing/distancing in more risky situations (in public/crowds of strangers).  Also by relaxing rules for vaccinated....that is an incentive for people to get vaccinated.  I would not be comfortable in a large gathering of people I know without precautions, even if all were masked...more so because of the risk of the vaccinated people picking up the virus and passing it to vaccinated people.

so what does this mean-percentage wise.....are they saying the vaccines are 85% effective instead of 95...or 5% effective?

"The percentage of protective antibodies that neutralized the variant -
called B.1.35, which has been recorded in 20 US states - was 12.4 times
lower for Moderna's COVID-19 shot than against the original coronavirus,
and 10.3 times lower for Pfizer's"

I had to be in New York today. First time since the pandemic started.  It felt pretty good knowing that I had the two shots, and yesterday was two weeks since my second shot. Hooray!  

I know a couple who both had covid back in April--and got it again last month (verified tests both times). They said the second time was milder but, still, I wouldn't count on that immunity...

I went to a restaurant for the first time in a year (got the 2nd shot a few weeks ago). What a joy to have someone else cook, serve and clean up.

sbenois said:

I went to the movies three weeks ago.  It was great.

4 other people in the theater.

 Have to make up for what you missed on your usual Christmas blitz. Hope that you also stopped for Chinese. 

ril said:

I know a couple who both had covid back in April--and got it again last month (verified tests both times). They said the second time was milder but, still, I wouldn't count on that immunity...

I went to a restaurant for the first time in a year (got the 2nd shot a few weeks ago). What a joy to have someone else cook, serve and clean up.

 as of a few weeks ago, the official total of reinfections worldwide was 50 people....

jmitw said:

ril said:

I know a couple who both had covid back in April--and got it again last month (verified tests both times). They said the second time was milder but, still, I wouldn't count on that immunity...

I went to a restaurant for the first time in a year (got the 2nd shot a few weeks ago). What a joy to have someone else cook, serve and clean up.

 as of a few weeks ago, the official total of reinfections worldwide was 50 people....

The number of people that have tested positive twice is much higher than that.  However, to be 100% certain it's a "reinfection" there must be genetic testing of both infections.  

i don't think the variant matter whether it is the same or a different one.  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/only-50-people-are-known-to-have-contracted-covid-19-more-than-once-but-medical-experts-are-on-high-alert-11613743994

it does say 11,700 suspected re infections.  it's not surprising that there are reinfections.  supposedly you can only get Mono once...I managed to get it twice.  I suspect most virus is like that....a small number will get sick again....

11,700, even if all confirmed, is a tiny tiny fraction of known cases.  Also, a post-script on the person I mentioned above who still has antibodies a year after contracting Covid.  Unlike him, his girlfriend had a quick mild case and she does not have antibodies now.  Their experience is consistent with things I've read to the effect that the severity of your case determines how if at all you generate antibodies.  It may be that a lot of these recurrences are in people who had mild cases and thus low or non-existent antibodies.  And if it ends up being like the flu - you need a shot every year - not so terrible, if we can get the thing to down to a flu-like illness or better in terms of hospitalizations and deaths and not the thing it is now.   

My wife and I are both fully vaccinated with the 2 week window. We have gone out to eat but I still will avoid big crowds. Maybe the movies in May and try to go away in June. I also will start going back to work in the office in April 2 days a week. 

All during the pandemic  we still shopped in stores for  food shopping . This was the only thing to keep us sane.

It comes down to a very personal decision for all of us. It will be surprisingly hard for many of us to go back to in person gatherings of any size, meandering through shops, taking public transportation, attending live performances, eating inside restaurants, etc. even two weeks+ after we are fully vaccinated.  There will remain the concern of infecting others, immunity wearing off, being the 5% or so for whom the virus does not prove effective, and the breaking of habits we have all developed over the past year.

I am hoping to attend a small indoor gathering at the end of March,  five adults who will have been fully vaccinated and one preschooler.  We nixed the idea of including one additional adult who has not been vaccinated yet out of concern for her health.  It has been over a year since we were all together in a room and we are all looking forward to the gathering.  Even this small gathering is making all of us, except possibly the preschooler, nervous as we watch the news daily to see if new variants or findings on the extent/duration of immunity will lead to our canceling our plans.  

Some of my mostly vaccinated racquetball buddies have just started to play again at LA Fitness in WO. I myself will wait until April after my second shot kicks in before I'll start playing again (assuming my new hip agrees with me.)  Can't wait.

I may have forgotten how to socialize.