Should You Still Wear A Face Mask After You’ve Been Vaccinated?

Given the increasing number of vaccinated individuals around the country and around the world, many will naturally wonder if there is still a need to wear face masks. After all, the public has always been looking forward to resuming their pre-pandemic lifestyles, and the first step to go about doing so is to live life without a mask. However, despite the progress of the vaccination campaign, many experts advise continuing to wear masks, especially in public areas. An infectious disease specialist, Kristin Englund, mentioned, “Unfortunately, getting vaccinated doesn’t mean that we can go back to how life was before, not at least before we have a certain level of herd immunity”. Kristin goes on to explain that at the current state, vaccination should be seen as nothing more than an additional layer of protection from catching COVID-19.

For herd immunity to be achieved, ideally 80% of the population will have to be vaccinated. Despite ongoing efforts to encourage vaccination, it becomes visibly difficult to achieve these levels within the country, much less around the world where production and distribution challenges are present.

What Difference Does Vaccination Make?

Despite the challenges in achieving herd immunity, there is still some good news for those who have already been fully vaccinated. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that fully-vaccinated individuals can safely gather indoors in small numbers without having to don their masks. Of course, that can only be done in an indoor setting where every other person is fully vaccinated.

Face Masks in Public Spaces

The ease of restrictions is easy to manage for indoor settings where the flow of individuals can be easily controlled. Unfortunately, the same doesn’t hold for outdoor and public settings. As such, fully-vaccinated people need to continue wearing their masks and maintain adequate physical distancing in public spaces. Regardless of one’s vaccination status, we should continue to avoid medium and large gatherings.

Why We Should Continue Wearing Face Masks

• Vaccination takes time to kick in. It takes approximately two weeks after the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine to reach a 95% effectiveness rate. As such, it doesn’t mean that you will be immediately protected the moment the needle goes into your arm.
• Vaccines do not provide 100% protection. While the vaccines are nothing short of effective, they only offer 95% protection, which means that there is still a certain risk present.
• Asymptomatic spreaders. As of now, more research needs to be done as to how effective vaccines are in preventing transmission. One rising concern among experts nowadays is that vaccinated people can become infected without being aware of it, and subsequently spread the virus to non-vaccinated individuals. As such, wearing a protective face mask will remain a good precautionary practice to limit the spread of COVID-19, thereby reducing the heavy burden faced by our healthcare workers.