What's the point of getting vaccinated then if not for returning to normalcy.

Bad idea. The variants are here and they are deadly. Nothing will save us.

I would consider this but I don't think my mom would (yet). She's a retired immunologist and very conservative about COVID. My parents should be considered fully vaccinated in about 3 weeks, but I don't know what their plans would be to see anyone. I think my mom might want to wait until all of us are vaccinated (except the kid). Combo of being extra super safe and a little more wait and see on case counts and vaccine efficacy in the real world.

Yep

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes of course. How is this even a question?

For real

Totally agree. There is a probability we will die (or get severly sick or injured) in many things we do every day). I put the probability that a vaccinated person will 1) contract covid, 2) develop enough symptoms to transmit it, 3) infect one of my family members during our interaction and 4) one of us will get so sick its a real problem as incredibly low. My kids get in the car, eat undercooked meats and cookie dough, play soccer with the risk of head injury, and will see vaccinated relatives.

Totally this! Our risk assessment during this pandemic has gotten completely out of whack. We take more risks in many things we do regularly. Life is not riskless.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes of course. How is this even a question?

For real

Totally agree. There is a probability we will die (or get severly sick or injured) in many things we do every day). I put the probability that a vaccinated person will 1) contract covid, 2) develop enough symptoms to transmit it, 3) infect one of my family members during our interaction and 4) one of us will get so sick its a real problem as incredibly low. My kids get in the car, eat undercooked meats and cookie dough, play soccer with the risk of head injury, and will see vaccinated relatives.

Why are you feeding your children undercooked meat?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes of course. How is this even a question?

For real

Totally agree. There is a probability we will die (or get severly sick or injured) in many things we do every day). I put the probability that a vaccinated person will 1) contract covid, 2) develop enough symptoms to transmit it, 3) infect one of my family members during our interaction and 4) one of us will get so sick its a real problem as incredibly low. My kids get in the car, eat undercooked meats and cookie dough, play soccer with the risk of head injury, and will see vaccinated relatives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I went to visit my mom after her first vaccine, and once I saw how badly she’d declined over the past year, I wished I’d gone even sooner, despite the risk. She lives alone, and the isolation/lack of social activity has taken a huge toll, both physically and cognitively.

My mother lives alone too. And this is why we saw her on a regular basis.

Our family took extra precautions that we wouldn't have otherwise (no gyms, no restaurants, no other social gatherings)

But the risk of the social isolation on her was not something we could ignore

You are unusual that you considered tradeoffs early on.

DP, but we did something similar once I saw the impact isolation and separation from family was having on my parents. We pulled our kids from daycare and engaged in absolutely no activities (even outdoors) with anyone other than my parents. DH and I both WFH. We were able to maintain that for several months before we had to re-enroll at daycare.

Yeah, it was hard, because we had to say no to many thing.

Or, when we did say yes to something (for example, we shared a beach house with another family in Aug when numbers were really low), we would not visit my mom for 14 days.

so whenever we wanted to do something, we had to ask, is it worth missing a weekend with Grandma?

Anonymous wrote:Yes of course. How is this even a question?

For real

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I went to visit my mom after her first vaccine, and once I saw how badly she’d declined over the past year, I wished I’d gone even sooner, despite the risk. She lives alone, and the isolation/lack of social activity has taken a huge toll, both physically and cognitively.

My mother lives alone too. And this is why we saw her on a regular basis.

Our family took extra precautions that we wouldn't have otherwise (no gyms, no restaurants, no other social gatherings)

But the risk of the social isolation on her was not something we could ignore

You are unusual that you considered tradeoffs early on.

DP, but we did something similar once I saw the impact isolation and separation from family was having on my parents. We pulled our kids from daycare and engaged in absolutely no activities (even outdoors) with anyone other than my parents. DH and I both WFH. We were able to maintain that for several months before we had to re-enroll at daycare.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I went to visit my mom after her first vaccine, and once I saw how badly she’d declined over the past year, I wished I’d gone even sooner, despite the risk. She lives alone, and the isolation/lack of social activity has taken a huge toll, both physically and cognitively.

My mother lives alone too. And this is why we saw her on a regular basis.

Our family took extra precautions that we wouldn't have otherwise (no gyms, no restaurants, no other social gatherings)

But the risk of the social isolation on her was not something we could ignore

You are unusual that you considered tradeoffs early on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Studies show vaccinated people don’t transmit the illness. Getting the vaccine means life returns to normal.

Which studies? It hasn't been fully examined at this point. Studies suggest that vaccinated people don't transmit illness. They also suggest that vaccinated people are unlikely to get sick, but there is still a chance. So you should be careful with your parent's health as well.

People without symptoms are much less infectious. As studies have shown, asymptomatic transmission is .7% of spread. And if you do spread Covid to your vaccinated parents, you are spreading a cold to them.

Citation for this please. As I understood it, most transmission was from asymptotic. Which is why we are in a pandemic because people
Don’t know they are sick and we’re still going put and about without masks.

Sure.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774102

Covid spreads through the population of essential workers. They have to work with mild symptoms because they need money to pay their bills. They live in small spaces with other essential workers, and often are multi generational households...

Essential workers needed sick leave and N95 masks. I bet we would have fared so much better as a country. Instead we have kids out of school and Karens complaining about mask compliance at the playgrounds.

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I went to visit my mom after her first vaccine, and once I saw how badly she’d declined over the past year, I wished I’d gone even sooner, despite the risk. She lives alone, and the isolation/lack of social activity has taken a huge toll, both physically and cognitively.

My mother lives alone too. And this is why we saw her on a regular basis.

Our family took extra precautions that we wouldn't have otherwise (no gyms, no restaurants, no other social gatherings)

But the risk of the social isolation on her was not something we could ignore

Yes of course. How is this even a question?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Studies show vaccinated people don’t transmit the illness. Getting the vaccine means life returns to normal.

Which studies? It hasn't been fully examined at this point. Studies suggest that vaccinated people don't transmit illness. They also suggest that vaccinated people are unlikely to get sick, but there is still a chance. So you should be careful with your parent's health as well.

People without symptoms are much less infectious. As studies have shown, asymptomatic transmission is .7% of spread. And if you do spread Covid to your vaccinated parents, you are spreading a cold to them.

Citation for this please. As I understood it, most transmission was from asymptotic. Which is why we are in a pandemic because people
Don’t know they are sick and we’re still going put and about without masks.

Sure.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774102

I think you misunderstand how Covid 19 spreads. Basically, low wage workers can’t stay home when they are sick because they don’t have leave and they need the money to pay their bills. They go to work with mild symptoms. Low wage workers also live in multi generational households with other high risk people, who are also essential workers. They live in small spaces and can’t isolate when they have symptoms.

Honestly, paid leave for essential workers would have done a lot more to stop transmission than outdoor mask mandates, online instruction, etc.