Covid Hope Over Fear
The CDC caused lots of confusion when new mask recommendations were announced by Dr. Rochelle Walensky at 2:17 PM on May 13th. The number of vaccinations in the US were dropping everyday, and so were the number of new Covid-19 cases. But some states still had increasing cases, were opening up, and vaccinated people were told that they could drop there masks outdoors, if they weren't in large groups. Would this inspire vaccine hesitant people to get vaccinated? See Below
"Almost immediately the number of visits to vaccine.gov to find vaccination centers spiked - rising even higher that afternoon. Later that afternoon President Biden encouraged people to get vaccinated so they could remove their masks in many instances. The increase in traffic to vaccines.gov continued and the number of vaccinations remained stable for the rest of May. This may have been a good example of how hope is better than continued fear.
The closing sentences in this NYTimes article said, "In the case of Covid vaccines, the hype is grounded in reality. Once you are fully vaccinated, you no longer have to organize your life around personal fear of Covid (unless you are immunosuppressed)." Please get vaccinated, but remember, in some previous studies on "breakthrough cases" in vaccinated people, the efficacy of the vaccines were lower after only one dose. If you only received 1 dose of the mRNA vaccines, get your second dose now - even if you missed the date for your 2nd dose. The pandemic will not be over when the virus can still infect susceptible people.