If you received the COVID vaccine and went back to normal life, are the variants causing you to retreat again?

I’ve resigned myself to pretty much the covid routine. I’ve managed to quench 3 requests to visit us since the niece and nephew left, and have only been to 2 gatherings with the family at restaurants. Masks are still the rule here, and the whole mess has actually benefited me enormously in my realization that I am happy with winding down.

I thought it was a bad idea to be told to “go back to life as usual” knowing that we do not have the majority of people vaccinated, and a lot of people who refuse to get vaccinated. It sets up a perfect storm for mutations to occur, and we don’t know if the vaccinations will fend off new mutations that may be coming down the pike.

I still mask up in public, and I rarely go out, and avoid crowds and strangers, because I don’t know their vaccination status. Not much change for me. I still follow the science and the news and try to keep myself updated and educated. Now is not the time to let down our guard.

I just got news from a neighbour that tested positive for the Delta variant. ‘Neighbour’ might be stretching it a bit… ‘fellow villager’? Young bloke who works as an international pilot. He was vaccinated as well and had Covid earlier this year. So, yeah, I’m not going around touching public surfaces and licking my fingers. I am not substituting a mask for social distancing though. I am still social distancing and wearing a mask where required. (no handshakes. no hugs. no chats with students in my office.) Keeping my outings limited. Getting things delivered when I can. The Delta variant is more virulent and we are not done with this virus yet.

The current fad of resisting vaccination assures me that normal is pretty much what we living through now. It’s the new normal. Those who have figured that out have already set about exploiting it, or for the less ambitious, accepted it and positioned themselves to cope. For those optimists operating on the assumption that things will ever be the same as precovid, I can only say “good luck with that”.

No.

Since my city is so vaccinated I don’t worry about it, I’m back to normal. A month ago I was still avoiding people I knew weren’t vaccinated, but now I don’t worry about them either if I know they generally are cautious. I’m still avoiding a room full of unvaccinated people for an extended period who don’t wear masks, but that is an extreme.

@sorry You’re in the UK right? So, your two part vaccinations were months apart. I wonder if there is more breakthrough cases in countries that did that. Might be more, less, or the same. UK was the guinea pig country for that vaccination dosaging method. I think Qatar did the same (It might have been Dubai?) maybe some other countries too.

I have had visits to my home with vaccinated people who are close relatives, unmasked. I went out to eat twice unmasked. Both times in a very spacious and uncrowded restaurant. I still wear my masks inside stores and such. Tho I have branched out a bit on where I go. I am still careful about hand hygiene. So I am not really retreating back but being wary.
The variants do worry me tho. Especially with my nephew’s huge wedding coming up at the end of September.

I am not isolating, but am doing a bit of mask-wearing and some reduced / distanced contact and lower-than-I-otherwise-would mingling. I’m not particularly worried for myself, but I am worried about the situation at large. I think mutated Covid will be killing many more people, and that there is a greater risk of more and worse variants the more people continue to get Covid, and that overall mingling, especially by unvaccinated people, has and will lead/led to more and more infections and deaths. And much of that is caused by the ridiculous politicization of the disease/measures/vaccines in the US.

No, I am done retreating. Everyone in my family is vaccinated, most of my friends are, my town has an 85% vaccination rate and things are getting more and more “back to normal” as the days go on. I’m seeing fewer masks than I did last week and next week I’ll probably see even fewer. I don’t see people accepting a return to lockdowns and school closures. I’m not going to live the rest of my life fearing this thing.

I’m with @Demosthenes. Most people here are vaccinated, I’m not wearing the mask in stores or restaurants any more. Some people do have masks on in stores and other public places. I’m no longer hearing about relatives or friends of friends getting the virus now. If I was hearing about friends or relatives getting sick, I’d be concerned but I’m not.

@Demosthenes If health officials recommend masks during flu season would you be on board with that? By the way often close schools for a few days or a week for flu in hot spots in the country, I wonder if people will freak out if that happens after the whole covid year. I mean they might overreact either having amnesia that we have done it before or maybe it just never happened in their school district before.

This is just another corollary among things not returning to precovid attitudes in the near term.

@JLeslie I might be, as long as it’s just a recommendation. I think it should be an individual choice. I’ve never known schools around here to close because of flu.

When I worked in an elementary school library, I was getting sick regularly until I decided to start wearing gloves while handling materials. Not a requirement, but a good idea.

@JLeslie. I don’t know what vaccine my neighbour received.

@JLeslie: My doctor said he’s going to wear masks voluntarily certain times of the year or certain places. He talked about wearing one during flu season. I don’t think things should shut down just because it’s flu season, though.

@jca2 I don’t think shut down because it is flu season either, nor do I think masks need to be mandated for fly like @Demosthenes said, I would just like more information when flu is bad in an area and recommendations to wear masks and take some other precautions. Schools cancel for a few days when a lot of students are out with flu. They do it already. It doesn’t happen a lot.

Examples of school flu shut downs in the recent past:

https://www.wesh.com/article/flu-causes-school-closure-in-longwood/30694679

https://www.inverse.com/article/52824-schools-shutdown-because-of-flu-outbreaks-states

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/flu-virus-closes-school-districts-middle-tennessee-and-southern-kentucky

I don’t doubt schools close if there are a lot of kids out with flu. That hasn’t happened here, though, @JLeslie, not recently at least.

@jca2 I didn’t think you didn’t believe me, just showing examples for you and the other jellies. I think it is very few schools in a given year compared to how many schools there are across the country. Probably some school districts pull the trigger on it faster than others.