I’m so sorry about this! Is there any chance you could talk with them to see if they could keep mitigation measures in place one more week so kids don’t have to miss their first communions? That just isn’t right at all 😢.

I don’t understand the point or connection.

Yes, but that still means over 92% have gone back for their second dose. That’s a pretty darn high rate—higher than for other vaccine series like shingles.

Yeah, I was going to say Saturday or Sunday for sure. Otherwise, Friday right before or Monday morning are both likely to be fine.

And at least that many people are asymptomatic post vaccine. I’d like to see everyone provided with paid time to get vaccinated, whether that needs to come from the employer or the government. No one should have to be risking their health to that degree due to worry that they will be one of the people who needs to take a day off after being vaccinated. (The percentage of people needing more than that is very small, and missing work due to Covid would be more likely than being one of the people with longer vaccine side effects.) That’s all the more reason to make sure they have ways to get vaccinated. Nobody should be having to go to work with Covid, and then they are exposing all their coworkers as well, which is part of why it spread so much in certain industries that lack benefits.

Alas, I strongly relate.

Ah. That changes the meaning a lot. Thanks @happi duck for pointing that out. I read it as “No, everyone”

Your statement was true. I have acknowledged that repeatedly. I expect there is likely to be someone out there that gained a little clarification on your post from reading my subsequent post, and that’s the reason I posted it. If no one did 🤷‍♀️. No harm done. What I posted was accurate as well. I don’t have anything else to discuss about it. I’m going to give you the last word on this, because as I’ve said, I’m not at all invested in this particular argument whatsoever.

Which risks everyone else, as the more spread we have, the more likely a variant will emerge which evades the vaccines, plus the strain on the health care system that effects everyone. So yeah, they can and will do that, but it’s beyond frustrating because that means those people are just going to prolong this pandemic that we now have the means to get under control. Facts are important and they could have reported facts at the same time they used the facts to inform a different kind of guideline that wouldn’t have been as risky to those not yet vaccinated (as I keep saying, there are lots of adults still waiting for their second shots, and then there are all the kids). They could have said they since those who are vaccinated can largely remove their masks, they will lift the mask recommendation as soon as a certain vaccine benchmark and/or case number threshold is reached.

I think it would’ve been helpful if the CDC had given more heads up that this was a change that was coming, rather than just instantly implementing it. Our church just started having an in person service again, and decided to keep the masking requirement in place for now until they figure it out. Seems like it would have gone further to the goal of encouraging people to be vaccinated if they said that starting June 30 or something, that anyone who is fully vaccinated could stop wearing a mask. I think by that point, even 12 to 15-year-olds would have a chance to be all done with their series.

I expect this might be differently received in high masking areas vs low masking ones. In places with mandates, people are likely used to everyone being masked. I haven’t seen anyone unmasked indoors in a year. People who would be dishonest about vaccination status have been masking here to this point, because it is required and enforced. I know from local discussions that there are plenty of those who have only been masking because they have to that are going to stop now because no one has any way to know who is eligible to be unmasked due to being vaccinated and who isn’t. That’s my issue with it, combined with…. I’m in an area where even people who worked hard to get a vaccine appointment as soon as they were eligible are still not done with the series, much less two weeks past second shot. So to me, it doesn’t meet the “everyone who wants to be vaccinated has been” standard at all. And then there are kids, and at a time when P1 is increasing and kids are being increasingly seriously affected.

Right. We agree on this (although the statistics shift when a poll divides further into “left leaning independents” and “right leaning independents” rather than lumping them together, making independents the biggest group). I clearly said I hadn’t looked up the survey (it wasn’t linked and as I’ve said, I actually have less than zero interest in encouraging the “Republicans won’t vaccinate” story, because I think it becomes self-fulfilling). I wasn’t drawing any conclusions. I was just commenting based on your bolded statement that 2/3 of those who won’t vaccinate are not Republican. It may be accurate, but it’s an example of the kind of use of statistics that is frequently purposely manipulated to make things seem to the casual reader as they are not. I think most readers would read that and think that that means Republicans are actually not less likely to vaccinate then Democrats or independents. Surely we know at this point that in general, Americans are not great at understanding studies or math or probabilities, and most are not going to notice that Republicans are disproportionately represented among those who will not vaccinate, which means that Republicans as a group are less likely to vaccinate than Democrats or Independents.

My 15 yo had a bit of sore arm, and that was all. Everyone in front of us in line was also a parent bringing a teen.

Like I said, I hadn’t looked up the survey itself. Seeing the breakdown, it doesn’t look as unbalanced as only 22% Republican made it sound. A little, but not much. Now I’m curious to see what the current breakdown of US adults by political affiliation is.

Well again, I’m actually not wanting to belabor this point, but just on the statistics side, for Republicans to make up only 22% of the sample, but 36.5% of those who won’t vaccinate shows they are disproportionately likely to not vaccinate. That was a strangely chosen sample (I haven’t seen anything but what you quoted, so perhaps it’s the case that ~22% of the sample was Democrat also, in which case at least the sample makes a little more sense.)

Those statistics are screwy and don’t show what the bolded might imply. I almost don’t want to explain why, because I think it might actually help get more people to vaccinate if people think they’re accurate 😂. It should be obvious when looking at the percentage of those polled who are Republican vs the percentage of those who won’t vaccinate that are Republican.

Technically it’s a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

Not for anything, but what? Did something change so that you can’t give infants Tylenol anymore? I avoided it for the most part, but they literally sell infant Tylenol for ages 6 months and up. You can call your doctor to get dosing for under 6 months old. But that’s obviously irrelevant to the rest of the conversation.

I don’t think most people who are convinced masks don’t do much want to bridge the divide. In my experience, they don’t actually want masks to work. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want them to, but that’s what I’ve been hearing from them. Or perhaps “some of the more considerate” 🤷‍♀️ That does change things significantly if that was your calculus. What about for other people who were invested in not catching it? Those are the people masks would be for protecting, all the more if you fully expected you would indeed catch it. Or maybe you stayed home all the time so you wouldn’t pass it to anyone else. That’s not what the CDC said, though. They were weighing the risk of kids being exposed to VACCINATED people without masks, not to unvaccinated. Your statement there reinforces what people are concerned about though, that people are going to think it means they are free to expose others even if they aren’t vaccinated. I know you have been vaccinated, and you said you wouldn’t lie about it, which is encouraging to hear, but what you say above is how it seems a lot of people are interpreting it.

Surgical masks do catch droplets, which can contain infectious virus, so it does help, but I agree a standard surgical mask does not do really well with aerosols. It appears to decrease them, but it doesn’t contain them, which is why indoor spaces become less and less safe the more people are in them and the worse the ventilation is. A mask fitter or a well fitted cloth mask over a surgical mask can keep most aerosols from escaping. Or of course a fit tested N95 as the gold standard. This has been covered lots of times, but the studies being used for that didn’t test what they said they were testing. They were poorly designed. And there have been a lot of studies since then showing the effectiveness of masks in reducing transmission (and also some pretty interesting older studies that have surfaced that show the same thing).

I could see a one off small place maybe, maybe, maybe getting that wrong, but I don’t think this is generally happening. Perhaps someone got confused with the “two weeks after the second shot” being considered fully vaccinated and transposed that in their head to mean the second shot was two weeks after the first.

I'm picking paint also, and looked this one up, and it looks like a really good white. I'm nervous to go white, because growing up, our walls were always white, and it was so boring and unattractive. But now I find myself really drawn to pictures of rooms with white walls. I know it's trendy to go white again, but I can't decide if I will quickly find it boring and wish we'd added some color, or if the white will feel good for a long time. I do really like the look of it right now. I'm only doing one room, so maybe I'm over thinking it.

So much this. Every single break we’ve had in this house has been missed at urgent care or ER. That’s three breaks and a very bad sprain/tendon injury which required surgery (that one was a “muscle strain” according to ER)

I think this is a smart way to go. I hope it works to get enough vaccinated to hit the target number, and then things can be relaxed and people can see how a highly vaccinated population can live. (Hopefully 70% proves enough. It may not in places that never had very much of their population infected.)

I feel like I keep saying this, but there are lots of places where even the very eager haven’t been able to get both shots yet. Many places didn’t open shots to everyone until mid April, and some of those remained competitive to find appointments for a couple weeks after that. That means that even the people who got their first shot right when it opened up, have only this past week been eligible for their second shot if they got Madonna, and then they need two weeks for it to take affect. It doesn’t take into account the people who couldn’t get an appointment until a couple weeks after that and aren’t yet to their second shot. And of course it doesn’t take into account the 12 to 15--year-olds. Most people I know were very eager to get vaccinated as soon as they could, and they are all just now coming to for their second shots. That’s one reason this seems premature to me. I agree half is way too high for kids, but single percentage seems too low for adults based on anything I’ve seen. I guess it depends on your definitions. I think people are worrying way too much about the young ones as far as social and development. My little one is the least affected by all of this. It’s been much worse for the young adults who are at an age where they’re ready to be separating more and moving on, but they haven’t been able to this year. I can see it being an issue for a toddler or young child in an impoverished environment, where being in high-quality daycare was really providing them with more than what they are getting at home, but in my experience it’s not been an issue for kids in homes where they are getting high-quality care from their parents. There has been lots of history where babies weren’t going out to stores and play dates and such, and they were just fine. Their parents are their important socializers at that age. I do look forward to being able to take my youngest out places again. She’s seen family outside and done zoom activities and FaceTime with extended family and otherwise continued to grow and play and learn and develop. She seems very much healthy and right on target.