What factors should people use to determine when it is safe for them to attend large community events like concerts or sports games?
What factors should people use to determine when it is safe for them to attend large community events like concerts or sports games?
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SciLine reaches out to our network of scientific experts and poses commonly asked questions about newsworthy topics. Reporters can use these responses in news stories, with attribution to the expert.
SciLine reaches out to our network of scientific experts and poses commonly asked questions about newsworthy topics. Reporters can use these responses in news stories, with attribution to the expert.
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Expert Comments:
Stephen S. Morse, PhD
For indoor events, I still prefer to be on the side of caution, even if vaccinated. You could consider outdoor events—with physical distancing when possible—or well-ventilated places with good hygiene and physical distancing. Risk is reduced for outdoor events, but of course is still not zero. With these precautions, we want to minimize risk as much as possible. The situation changes rapidly, so be sure to get the best information you can – CDC or your health department are good places to start. We hope to see the situation improve, at least in the U.S. and some other countries, probably in the summer, as these precautions and vaccination start to really pay off.
Uma R. Karmarkar, PhD
In the past year, people have been wrestling with making everyday decisions under complicated layers of uncertainty. This includes having to estimate risks even when we feel like we don’t have enough information to calculate the probability of harm. In addition, the information that we do have is constantly changing over time. This kind of ‘uncertainty about uncertainty’ is uncomfortable and very tiring. It’s tempting to think about vaccination as a way to switch off uncertainty in decision-making. Instead of flipping a switch, however, it can be useful to think about vaccination as a transition to better odds of avoiding the virus given what we know. So even if people can choose activities after vaccination that weren’t advisable before vaccination, it’s still worth recognizing if there are risks during the decision process.
For individuals, vaccination offers reassurance about the riskiness of unfamiliar situations, and a decrease in their risk levels for many activities. Coupled with that, it’s also important for vaccinated people to keep in mind that they’re not just making choices for themselves, but for everyone else around them, including unvaccinated others.
