To Mask or Not to Mask

“We are in this together — and we will get through this, together.” — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

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Myfamily has been fully vaccinated for several months now, yet we continue to mask up in indoor settings for the most part. I say for the most part because we remove our masks when dining indoors, which we do now on a fairly regular basis. After settling for takeout for the better part of 15 months, we are finally allowing ourselves to enjoy life as it gradually begins to resume normalcy.

We only wore KN95 masks throughout the pandemic but switched to fabric masks since the lifting of the mask mandates several months ago. Fortunately, the masks kept us well protected so far.

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The Delta Variant

We live in the South, and more than half the people in our area do not wear a mask in the supermarkets anymore. At our small neighborhood gym, nobody wears a mask at all. The only places people consistently mask up are at doctors’ offices.

Yet, if you throw the delta variant into the pot, it seems we should continue to mask up due to the chance of getting a breakthrough infection.

This more transmissible variant is spreading quickly worldwide, leaving young, unvaccinated people more vulnerable than ever.

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Conflicting Evidence

To make matters more confusing, we are receiving conflicting evidence from the CDC and the WHO regarding masks.

The CDC maintains that fully vaccinated people need not wear masks indoors anymore.

On the other hand, the World Health Organization asserts that fully vaccinated people continue to wear masks, social distance, and practice other Covid-19 pandemic safety measures.

If and when vaccinated, people become infected with Delta, their symptoms tend to be milder and resemble the common cold, rarely requiring hospitalization. Indeed, many breakthrough infections are asymptomatic and are discovered by routine testing among patients who arrive at the hospital for other reasons.

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Photo by iStockphoto

Pandemic of the Unvaccinated

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, “This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

She elaborates that they are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country with low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk. In contrast, communities that are fully vaccinated are generally doing well.

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Final Thoughts

It is such a needless tragedy that could be avoided if only everyone would get the vaccine. It is challenging to get the anti-vaxxers to change their minds. Unfortunately, many of them do not believe in wearing masks to protect themselves.

After months of falling cases, Covid infections are on the rise again in the U.S. New cases jumped by 55% since last week to an average of 37,000 new cases per day in the previous seven days, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

It looks like we will continue to mask up indoors, at least for the foreseeable future.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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