For unvaccinated Americans, yes.
 | By Alexandra Sifferlin Senior Staff Editor, Opinion |
The spread of the Delta variant and reports of breakthrough infections may have vaccinated people feeling anxious, even if the vaccines are working as they should. "Covid-19 is not even close to a crisis for those who are vaccinated, but it is a true danger to those who are unvaccinated," writes Aaron Carroll in his guest essay this week on the state of the pandemic in the United States. |
If you and most of the people living around you are vaccinated, things are much better than they used to be, he writes. Even with Delta spreading, that remains true. But for the unvaccinated, the risks of being hospitalized or dying from Covid-19 haven't improved much since the start of the pandemic. |
Despite hopes for a "summer of joy and freedom," amid rising Covid-19 cases the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new masking guidelines that include urging even the vaccinated to mask up indoors in places with high transmission rates. |
While the change has spurred much anxiety and debate, Carroll argues that thinking about the situation in the United States as an escalating emergency for everyone is "not quite right" and that ultimately asking the vaccinated to mask up is unlikely to be what changes the trajectory of the pandemic. |
"Such recommendations are less likely to succeed because they are more likely to be followed by those already primed to listen — the vaccinated — and to be fought and ignored by those who aren't," he writes. |
Other experts, including Jennifer Nuzzo and Beth Blauer at Johns Hopkins, argue in another guest essay that in order for measures like bringing back universal masking to work, leaders and health officials need to do much more to prove the value of that strategy. This includes tying masking requirements to specific metrics, like vaccination coverage goals and acceptable hospitalization levels. |
What pandemic policies should aim for at this point, argues Carroll, is to reinforce the message that the vaccines work and to push more people to get them. He's in favor of mandates: So far, mere persuasion has not convinced enough Americans to get vaccinated. |
"Hospitalizations and deaths are rising in some areas not because someone didn't wear a mask at the ballgame," writes Carroll. "They're occurring because too many people are not immunized." |
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