The Center for Disease Control issued a statement on April 27 that fully vaccinated Americans can go outside without wearing masks. But should you?
The endless COVID-19 conversation, though never completely stale and repetitive, often rhymes. This isn’t the first time that mandates and restrictions have been put in place or molded to better fit collected data. The eased mask requirement is a bit unprecedented, however.
I’m not going to tell you to keep wearing your mask, I’m not a scientist. But take a moment to think critically. Where do you live? Who surrounds you? What do the COVID-19 numbers look like?
According to the Moscow City Council press release, the city of Moscow has put in place a mask mandate that will last until the end of the Moscow School District’s academic year, June 9.
The date makes enough sense, the population of Moscow will drastically dwindle with University of Idaho students going home for the summer and large gatherings of people will be more or less infrequent. That being said, the Latah County COVID-19 numbers are slightly concerning.
According to the New York Times, Latah County is one of the three Idaho counties that have an “extremely high exposure risk.” Data shows that six people are diagnosed with COVID-19 per day. Admittedly, the number seems low but that’s the beauty of statistics—they can make anything seem more or less severe than reality.
Furthermore, 31% of Latah County is fully vaccinated, significantly less than half of the desired herd immunity percentage according to University of Maryland Medical System.
Being fully vaccinated is not a get-out-of-jail-free card either. It’s still possible to get and spread COVID-19, according to the CDC. No medicine is 100% perfect, especially any of the developed vaccines.
The last thing anyone needs or wants is spreading the disease to someone with a weakened immune system, especially this far into the pandemic. Whether you’re personally related to someone, or you see them in passing, don’t put them in a position that risks their lives.
What’s my point? We aren’t out of the woodworks just quite yet. Yes, we have made a significant step in the right direction that gives us hope for a somewhat normalized future. No, life isn’t back to normal.
I think it’s important for individuals to consider their city and neighboring city’s COVID-19 numbers. Places in the South and Midwest are still unsafe considered by standard measures. Moscow seems safe. We’ve handled the pandemic well so far; I don’t expect us to start fumbling the progress we’ve already made.
In my unexpert opinion, it may be best to continue wearing our masks until June 9, when the mask mandate lifts in Moscow. Just to be sure that we really put the spread of COVID-19 to an end, we can go the extra mile to ensure the safety of our precious Moscowians.
Maybe, just maybe, summer life in Moscow may be really refreshing. Maybe it will resemble something of year’s past. If wearing our masks for a couple more weeks gives us just the chance of that happening, I’m all in. I hope everyone else will be too. I’m not an expert or a scientist, I’m just a concerned student who wants life to go back to normal.
Carter Kolpitcke can be reached at [email protected]