Experts say you should still wait when it comes to safe indoor dining at a restaurant during the pandemic.
The patio is open, the music’s on, and people are waiting to be seated at the entrance. Life is as it should be. Good food is being served and friends and family are waiting to share time with you and celebrate. Of course, you don’t feel worried about it at all: you’ve been vaccinated. You have all the protection you need against the coronavirus, don’t you? Or, do you?
The coronavirus vaccine is certainly a blessing for those who choose to take it. Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are said to be 95% effective. Johnson & Johnson’s is just over 66% effective. No participants in any of the clinical trials run in connection with these companies died from the coronavirus after the vaccines took effect, which amounts to amazing results. And so, in this way, it would seem like dining indoors in a restaurant with others after having a COVID-19 vaccine is a perfectly sane and safe thing to do.
Still a Long Wait
The ongoing, unsettled trouble lies in the variants of the virus now circulating in the pandemic. Love him or hate him, Dr. Anthony Fauci recommends that COVID-19 restrictions not be loosened until new daily cases of the virus drop below 10,000 in the US. Since these have gone down a lot but are still hovering over 65,000 per day, it’s going to be a while still before we can all hang out together safely again, in public or private, indoors.
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Experts say the vaccines now being used in the US do provide some level of protection against the more contagious coronavirus variants but they are not as effective as they were in clinical trials. The protection offered by Pfizer’s vaccine, for example, dropped by two-thirds against the COVID-19 variant from South Africa. That’s a substantial drop. And while you may not get terribly sick if you are vaccinated, catch a variant is still bad news. You could very likely pass it onto someone else who isn’t yet vaccinated. And so the saga continues.
Long Term Effects
There are also the long term effects of the virus to consider. If you are vaccinated against the coronavirus, your chances of getting seriously sick are certainly lower. Yet, it is still possible to catch it, especially a variant, and for some, even if you don’t need to be hospitalized, falling sick can mean the effects last for months to come. According to the Mayo Clinic coronavirus symptoms can persist for a long time. The virus can actually do lasting damage to your lungs, heart, and brain. This can even happen in people who get a mild case of COVID-19. Long term coronavirus symptoms can include joint and chest pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, and memory or concentration problems, among other physical and mental problems.
So, while dining out at an indoor establishment might be high on your list when it comes to getting out and about after being vaccinated, it could be something to delay. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers indoor dining at a restaurant to be one of the higher-risk activities during the pandemic.
For the moment, it’s a good idea to stick to patios and takeout. Hopefully we’ll be moving indoors by summertime.
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