Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Springfield, New Bedford, Lawrence: Indians, suburbs, office)

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by Amontillado

(CNN)People fully vaccinated against Covid-19 do not need to wear masks or practice social distancing indoors or outdoors, except under certain circumstances, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday.

"If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic," Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House Covid-19 briefing. "We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy."


So, when are state guidelines going to reflect this? Maybe soon it'll be "Businesses can ask you to wear a mask, but the state is no longer making it compulsory".

The big problem is, how does a business (or others) know who has or hasn't been vaccinated?

[rach5]

Originally Posted by Amontillado

(CNN)People fully vaccinated against Covid-19 do not need to wear masks or practice social distancing indoors or outdoors, except under certain circumstances, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday.

"If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic," Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House Covid-19 briefing. "We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy."


So, when are state guidelines going to reflect this? Maybe soon it'll be "Businesses can ask you to wear a mask, but the state is no longer making it compulsory".

I hope they won't reflect this - but it will be hard for any state to resist. It is a big f*** you to immunocompromised people, young kids - all those who can't vaccinate yet, or who don't mount a sufficient immune response. I bet lots of parents with potentially vulnerable kids will now be reconsidering their summer plans. The CDC wants to give an incentive to people to get vaccinated. What is the actual effect? Give unvaccinated people an incentive to lie to ditch their masks. And allow new variants to spread significantly before we catch them. Looks like we are simply not happy with few to no cases of covid.

[mdovell]

This ^^^

Well apparently where I work is going to be opening more on June 1st. We're going to have a guard and all names are going to be logged in. They have to check in and check out and they're going to be contact tracing in case anything spreads. I was fine with this until I heard about the mask 40. Massachusetts is giving another week but then are we going to start checking IDs and immunization records if somebody refuses to put a mask on?

We have to require masks on people going in there's otherwise it's really compromising everything. My girlfriend's a teacher and even now there's still occasionally some students that come down with it and then they have to isolate for about a week and a half.

[BostonMike7]

This sounds like it just creates a giant cluster****.

[CaseyB]

Originally Posted by massnative71

The big problem is, how does a business (or others) know who has or hasn't been vaccinated?

They don't, and for the near future you should probably keep your distance, but people are tired of wearing masks.

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by massnative71

The big problem is, how does a business (or others) know who has or hasn't been vaccinated?

I think the whole premise here is--neither the business, nor the fully vaxxed, should care because the risks have been deemed to be low. The non-vaxxed who come in without a mask, are doing so at their own risk.

I fully expected we'd get to this state but honestly at a higher % immunized than we have currently. But we're doing pretty well in MA!

[msRB311]

I have noticed a few businesses update their Facebook pages to say they respect what the CDC says but they are still requiring everyone to wear a mask indoors

[in_newengland]

Originally Posted by msRB311

I have noticed a few businesses update their Facebook pages to say they respect what the CDC says but they are still requiring everyone to wear a mask indoors

Good. I was just starting to enjoy being in stores again now that I'm vaccinated but it's going to be back to ordering online or just a quick dash into a store. A year ago if I ventured into a store, people were polite and kept their distance. Recently, I noticed a big difference with people practically crashing into me, walking right in front of me, not keeping much distance at all. Even vaccinated, I don't feel safe up that close to unvaccinated people and now they won't even be wearing masks. They're just going to fake it about being vaccinated anyway.

[Amontillado]

BOSTON (CBS) – The COVID-19 mask order will remain in place in Massachusetts, despite new guidance from the CDC released on Thursday.

The CDC is easing indoor mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated people.

Gov. Charlie Baker said his administration welcomes the new guidance and will be updating the state’s COVID restrictions in the near future.
“In the meantime, the current mask order remains in place,” a spokesperson for the governor said...

[rach5]

Originally Posted by in_newengland

Good. I was just starting to enjoy being in stores again now that I'm vaccinated but it's going to be back to ordering online or just a quick dash into a store. A year ago if I ventured into a store, people were polite and kept their distance. Recently, I noticed a big difference with people practically crashing into me, walking right in front of me, not keeping much distance at all. Even vaccinated, I don't feel safe up that close to unvaccinated people and now they won't even be wearing masks. They're just going to fake it about being vaccinated anyway.

Exactly. That's how I feel, and I have no reason to believe that I didn't mount an adequate immune response. And now imagine being immune compromised (which A LOT of people are), without masking and with pretty much no distancing indoors.
You bring up the question if this policy is actually all that good for business...Are there enough people like us who will dial back? According to cnn, some unions representing retail workers are also already coming out against this policy. Can't imagine a high risk employee will love coming in close contact with unmasked customers all day long every day, when a substantial fraction of the customers will still be unvaccinated. Will businesses who were hoping to bring back employees make provisions so that those that may not have mounted a sufficient immune response can still work from home, in order to follow CDC guidance? Masking indoors is such a low-cost measure and our cases are still too high. And with the recent news of covid spreading amongst the fully vaccinated Yankees - not good. Especially as they have testing (3x a day!), contact tracing and isolation abilities that regular folks just don't have access to. They also sequence their cases (it's an unspecified apparently aggressive variant. My guess it's not the UK variant - I suspect they would have mentioned that one as it is so common that it wouldn't be something to hide anymore). https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/s...ees-covid.html
An outbreak like that amongst people who don't test daily will lead to infections in how many unvaccinated, kids or immune-compromised people before it is detected? Combine that with the CDC's new policy of no longer reporting breakthrough cases unless they lead to hospitalizations or deaths (probably to avoid scaring people that they are not fully protected).