Now that California has almost “opened” after the covid restrictions, the health department is once again “strongly” recommending that fully vaccinated oldsters and at risk folks go back to masking indoors. They aren’t exactly clear about the details of why this is so, but my guess is that while the vaccines are very effective, they are not totally effected. They are claiming 95% effective at keeping a person from getting so sick as to go to the hospital, but some much lower effectiveness at keeping people from catching it. So, it sounds like 1 out of 20 (5%) are at risk of getting pretty sick even with vaccines. The State’s population is about 32 million people, so that leaves about 1.5 million vulnerable people assuming everyone is vaccinated. Since there are less than 50% vaccinated, that leaves about 16 million totally vulnerable to the full on illness, and about 3/4 million that are likely to get a mild version. While this is better than a few months ago, it still leaves us with the most “at risk” people in the country.

Since there appears to still be no solid evidence that vaccinations prevent a person from contracting it, and therefore being able to spread it, there is still a huge risk. My assumption remains that if after all of this time, and all of the vaccinations worldwide, they “don’t know” if it protects from spreading – it doesn’t. I suppose I am a skeptic, but I think they would really like to state that it stops spreading – but since they haven’t I think it doesn’t. Perhaps it changes the rate of spreading somewhat, but we haven’t yet heard data on that point either.

The point of all of this isn’t to scare anyone, or to harangue on the topic. The point is to once again try to update people’s perception of where we stand with this pandemic. We are to the point that was considered to be terrible, huge, massive (or whatever terms you like) before it got even worse. Not only that, but there is every suggestion that it will get much worse again as the weather changes and new variants become “popular.”

Another misconception that the general public seems to have is that the CDC’s (and State’s) recommendations are intended to help keep individuals (you and me) healthy. I think that is not what they are worrying about. They don’t care much about you and me as individuals, they care about the health care system and the economy. The recommendations are aimed at keeping the case rate in hospitals as high as they can without overwhelming them. The faster people get sick and then better, the quicker this whole thing will come to an end. Shorting the period of time that the pandemic lasts has many important features – not the least of which is that it allows less time for new variants to emerge. So the goal isn’t to keep us healthy as individuals, it is to moderate the rates in the entire population. So the idea that it is “your choice” whether or not you want to take the risks is totally counter to the important goal of us all working together to get past this whole thing as a large community. It is all about what is good for the Country, it is not about what risks we feel comfortable with as individuals. So when they suggest that it is “safe enough” to go unmasked indoors they don’t mean it is safe enough for you, it means that they think that it won’t overwhelm the health care system. They know that lots of people that follow that recommendation will get sick, but that is sort of the point – since many people refuse to get vaccines then it is important to make sure that many of those people contract the disease. Otherwise we are all stuck with this thing. The way to help the Country (or local community) as a whole is to either get vaccinated, or get infected. Oddly, both of these options lead to the same hoped for ending of the pandemic, but one options has a much larger number of dead people along the way (those that are willing to take the risks of not being vaccinated).

And then there is the little problem of getting the economy restarted. Clearly it is important to get people buying stuff again, and buying stuff in their local communities. This presents an immense pressure on the politicians to convince people to take the riskiest approach by interacting with each other. Not that the politicians want you to get sick, they want you to do things to get the economy rolling (spend money, get jobs, build stuff, sell stuff). If that means recommending less than optional behavior, so be it – as long as the hospitals aren’t overrun in the process. They have a delicate balancing act without having sufficient knowledge or data to know exactly what outcome is most likely. I don’t envy the decision makers who have to make decisions that are balanced on an invisible wire.

So my advice is to not depend upon CDC or government recommendations to decide your personal risk. They are making decisions for the overall group, we have to make decisions for ourselves – knowing that those decisions are important for the overall group as well. I am holding to my position that personally I got vaccinated and I mask and social distance as much as feasible. I am taking more risks now than before because of “social pressures” – but I certainly have not stopped paying attention. Being fully vaccinated I feel pretty safe for myself, but I think I still have a responsibility toward society at large.