Hey, just wondering what your hot take is on the Schengen area allowing any American who's had both doses to travel for vacation this summer. Reasonable to open up or not very prudent?
I’m glad that you phrased this the way that you did. Not, “is it safe” to open up but is it “reasonable”—a better way to ask the question since safety is a relative matter.
Based on the facts I have in hand now, it is reasonable to open borders to vaccinated people from countries with low COVID-19 burdens. By the summer, I expect the US to have a relatively low COVID-19 burden if vaccination continues at or near its current pace. Unfortunately we have seen some slowing in the daily vaccination rate in the US already, which is troubling, but I understand that we are still on track for a 75% vaccination rate by July.
At that level of vaccination, I expect that we will have the pandemic rather well controlled. If we get there, then I believe it is reasonable to open borders to vaccinated US travelers. They would be unlikely to bring SARS-CoV-2 into whatever target country they are visiting, and also unlikely to get sick in-country and burden the local healthcare system.
But this all relies on a lot of assumptions. It could be that by summer there are new developments that makes this not make sense anymore. We will have to see.
Hi, John. Congrats on the vaccine. You presumably know this, but: most people don't feel any side effects for a day or two after the shot, if we get any. I basically had a sore shoulder (both shots) and a headache (once), and I can't be sure the headache had anything to do with the vaccine--it isn't as if I'm otherwise immune to headaches. Good luck on that.
Thanks, Carl! Like for my first dose, I had persistent fatigue and arm soreness. The fatigue set in sooner and lasted for more hours with the second dose. I'll do a detailed writeup in tomorrow's edition.
Hey, just wondering what your hot take is on the Schengen area allowing any American who's had both doses to travel for vacation this summer. Reasonable to open up or not very prudent?
I’m glad that you phrased this the way that you did. Not, “is it safe” to open up but is it “reasonable”—a better way to ask the question since safety is a relative matter.
Based on the facts I have in hand now, it is reasonable to open borders to vaccinated people from countries with low COVID-19 burdens. By the summer, I expect the US to have a relatively low COVID-19 burden if vaccination continues at or near its current pace. Unfortunately we have seen some slowing in the daily vaccination rate in the US already, which is troubling, but I understand that we are still on track for a 75% vaccination rate by July.
At that level of vaccination, I expect that we will have the pandemic rather well controlled. If we get there, then I believe it is reasonable to open borders to vaccinated US travelers. They would be unlikely to bring SARS-CoV-2 into whatever target country they are visiting, and also unlikely to get sick in-country and burden the local healthcare system.
But this all relies on a lot of assumptions. It could be that by summer there are new developments that makes this not make sense anymore. We will have to see.
Hi, John. Congrats on the vaccine. You presumably know this, but: most people don't feel any side effects for a day or two after the shot, if we get any. I basically had a sore shoulder (both shots) and a headache (once), and I can't be sure the headache had anything to do with the vaccine--it isn't as if I'm otherwise immune to headaches. Good luck on that.
Thanks, Carl! Like for my first dose, I had persistent fatigue and arm soreness. The fatigue set in sooner and lasted for more hours with the second dose. I'll do a detailed writeup in tomorrow's edition.