One would think there would be some concern among Republicans that they are going to lose even more Republican voters by being disproportionately unvaccinated and that even gerrymandering and making voting harder for minorities won’t be enough for them to win elections anymore if they’re dying at higher rates. *Note: I do not belong to any political party either

It is amazing how different it is different places. I haven’t seen anyone unmasked in a store all year. There was one guy in Trader Joe’s last Summer who seemed to be making a show of calling attention to himself. I went into a store yesterday and wondered if I was suddenly going to see a bunch of people without masks, but no. Still no one without a mask. Will be interesting how it plays out over the coming weeks.

I know these statistics have been pretty true all along, but I still worry that repeating them just makes the hesitant Republicans even more so, because their decision is already primarily political, and this just reinforces that (not saying you shouldn’t share them, just sharing how I anticipate people responding to them).

While I agree that I haven’t seen anything else that suggests it’s as high as half (though I have seen 1/3 in another study), I don’t know what relevance your three kids not having ongoing issues would have to whether or not half was an accurate number. You could have ten kids who had Covid and none of them have any issues and it wouldn’t have any bearing on what the true proportion of kids with long Covid is. One family does not a study make. I’ve been looking at ours as well, and I agree it’s going to impact where I shop and such. My zip code is not nearly as well vaxed as the one where I tend to shop, and I will surely be doing my shopping there (I don’t have a regular grocery store in my zip code, so it’s not like I’m being rude by doing this—this is where I mostly shopped prepandemic as well). I have another store available the other direction, toward the less vaccinated area, and that’s not the one we will go to.

I’m so sorry! I hadn’t been thinking about this particular set of circumstances. The thing is, I don’t think anyone is going to be thinking badly of those who are masking. My concern is those who are unvaccinated AND not masking. I expect a lot of people to still be masking for all kinds of reasons, and I don’t think most people will think anything negative of them.

I think they really thought that this would be a way to show people the benefits of being vaccinated and people would be more likely to do so knowing they can change their behaviors once they do. Which would be all well and good, IF we could count on people to do the right thing with regard to masking. Which we can’t.

We’re not seriously back to this, are we? I don’t even believe you that that’s a serious question. You know why this has been different. Most of the epidemiologists I follow agree with you. Of course the vaccine is more powerful. But people need to actually be vaccinated for it to do its job. Exactly. Over and over throughout this pandemic, we make the same mistake. That’s not just the US, that’s all over the world. Things start to improve, and things get lifted before they have improved to the point that we can lift them without ending up right back where we started. If we could exercise a little more patience, we would get there and not keep having these rebounds. Simplistic conclusions? You mean like “how long do we have to mask? Until we die?” And “why don’t we have to wear masks for other illnesses?” What are the popular policies here that have caused needless deaths?

I asked my oldest their thought on Target’s massive Pride line, because it strikes me personally like you say above, but they thought most of it was pretty great, except a few items that are kind of ugly. I think Target’s just using it as a vehicle for more money making, but 🤷‍♀️ , that’s their job, I guess.

Or why can’t the US do even slightly inconvenient things for the greater good? It’s not like masking is even a really hard thing. Can you imagine if WWII happened with the current US population? We’d be done for. There’s no will for doing hard things or for true patriotism or serving the greater good. Sad 😢.

I worry about this issue. I feel like the more people make a point of Trump supporters being the most hesitant group, the more people in that group will dig into being anti-vax, because that’s their group identity and whatever identities them as such is what they want to project. If they were hearing that Trump supporters are the most eager group to get vaccinated and liberals were hesitant because of Trump’s involvement of Operation Warp Speed, I would expect a large proportion of the Trump-supporting reluctant vaxers would have raced to get vaccinated. That’s interesting. The racial differences are very different in the places I’ve looked at them in the US. Asian groups have had the highest uptake (ours doesn’t separate South Asian vs East Asian), with many places as high as 30% higher uptake among Asians than among whites. Your rates are much higher for whites there than here (although they are high among elderly whites here as well, regardless of political affiliation).

Yes. Trials are underway for everything from six months up. There have been some predictions younger kids will have a vaccine approved by September, but more recently I’ve been hearing that might not be until early 2022.

I don’t think that’s quite fair. While I’m sure some were made up, many were based on actual studies and science. I agree the precise numbers of what the various risk levels were best guesses, but I think @Ailaena’s main point stands, that while masks provide some protection for the wearer, the greatest protection from masks comes from the infected person wearing one. It’s going to be more important than ever now for people who need the protection to be wearing really excellent, well fitted masks. It won’t be practical for most kids to wear super tight n95s all day, though.

In a lot of states that waited longer to open vaccines to everyone, people are only now getting, or are still waiting for, second shots. There are a lot of issues with this new guidance, but in the very least it seems premature until everyone is able to finish their series and be two weeks out. Ideally including the 12-15year olds vaccines just opened to. I only just got my second shot, and have been looking forward to so many things, and now I fear this new guidance will spoil it all, because I don’t trust anti-maskers to continue masking if they’re not vaccinated. I had also been considering what things I might feel comfortable to take my too young to be vaccinated child to do, and now this messes that all up as well. I’m not taking her indoors around unmasked, unvaxed people at this point. Besides not wanting her to get it, we have elderly grandparents we’re finally going to be able to see, and we can’t do that if a kid might be carrying Covid.

Same with virologists, apparently (worth a click through for Schitt's Creek fans 😂)

The problem is that I don't think this is going to have this effect whatsoever. The people who don't intend to ever get vaccinated are the same ones who have been screaming about masks this whole time, and they will drop their masks immediately, without getting vaccinated. Some of those same people might have decided to finally get vaccinated if that was what was needed to get more things able to open up. I think this makes things suddenly much LESS safe to open up. Fortunately, much of the US has pretty low cases right now, so in those areas with low cases and good vaccination rates, it might go okay. Those places with low cases but also low vaccination rates, I expect will see some resurgence. Perhaps it will wait until Fall though (which isn't good either, because we have had a really good shot at things being normal in fall if people get vaccinated). Ugh. Just like it was never true that those wearing masks were less careful about social distancing (studies showed they were more careful than those who didn't wear masks), it doesn't seem at all likely that those who don't want to be vaccinated are suddenly going to decide to keep wearing masks and social distancing for the sake of keeping their communities safe. And the people who genuinely can't be vaccinated, or whose immune systems make the vaccine not very effective, will suffer most of all. They will keep wearing masks, but without the unvaccinated being masked, they will still be at elevated risk. As far as preschoolers go, I think people make much ado about nothing with that. Masks are a non event for my preschooler and all the others I know. Kids follow their parents' leads at that age. The only ones traumatized by it are the ones whose parents are constantly on about how terrible and traumatizing it is for them.

I’ve had this worry before as well. It’s a lot of trust to put in the location that does your vax that they’re doing everything right. The real world numbers are looking good enough that I expect overwhelmingly they are.

I don’t know anyone with family in India right now whose family is untouched. That alone tells me the numbers can’t be right. So many people were just preparing to fly home to India to visit their parents before this started 😢.

I’ve been trying everywhere all day, and I’ve only found two portals open for 12 to 15--year-olds nearby, and neither has appointments left this week. I did end up finding one this week by driving into the nearest big city. I had hoped to avoid that. Still, it’s good.

Where is Australia now on the acknowledgment that Covid is airborne? I know Australia and Canada were both among countries very reluctant to do so, but I’m wondering if that has changed now with the WHO acknowledgment.

I don’t know if zofran would work, but seems like a good chance it would and seems worth trying. I agree that would be a far preferable solution to a benzo.

At the pediatricians office, I wouldn’t expect I need to show anything. Our pediatrician is actually scheduling 12-15--year-olds along with 16 to 18-year-olds for their vaccination clinics, but their spots are all full. They know all my kids’ ages, so they wouldn’t need it. I have had a kid vaccinated at Walgreens once, but I can’t remember if I did anything other than sign forms and provide my own ID. I’ll make sure I can lay hands on the birth certificate, in case it’s needed. I expect that would make a barrier for more people getting their kids vaccinated though, because not everyone has birth certificate copies on hand.

I’m so sorry. Does your loved one need a higher level of care? Many programs at a higher level of care than outpatient also have a wraparound family support component. (I realize it’s possible that your loved one is already hospitalized, but it does seem like residential and partial hospitalization programs frequently have more of a family component than full on inpatient.)

Does anyone know how ages will be verified for these kids who are too young for most of them to have ID?

Does anyone know how you would go about scheduling one for a kid on the Walgreen site who isn’t part of your pharmacy account? My kid has never had a prescription ( I just realize that typing this, that’s weird), and when I try going through the motions just to see how Walgreen site works, it automatically fills me in as the patient, in an uneditable field. It takes me a while to even get there, because as soon as I go to look up the closest vaccine site, it logs me in and boots me back out to the main Walgreen site and I end up in a loop before I can finally get it to actually show me vaccine sign up stuff. I want to be ready to know how to do it when it opens up. Anyone have any instructions? We have a lot more Moderna around here than anything else right now, it seems. It doesn’t seem right to shift all the adults to Johnson and Johnson though, given that the adults are at higher risk than the kids. I realize Pfizer is the only thing they can give the kids, I just don’t think they should be prioritized ahead of adults in this particular case. Perhaps they’re finding that adults who have delayed getting a shot to this point tend to be more amenable to the one shot vaccine anyway?

If anyone finds a chain that is allowing under 16‘s schedule already, can you share which chain? (I say chain because it’s unlikely anyone else is going to live near the same place.)