The CDC announced today that it is relatively safe for people who are fully vaccinated to gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing.
It was welcome news for the millions of Americans who are fully vaccinated, meaning at least two weeks have passed since they received their second dose.
Public health experts have previously suggested that it is relatively safe for people who are vaccinated to be exposed to one another because the vaccine is highly effective at preventing serious illness and death; perhaps even more effective than many people may think.
"When you hear this number of 95% efficacy, you know, it doesn’t mean that you still have a 5% chance of getting infection," Dr. David Freedman, a professor emeritus of infectious diseases at University of Alabama at Birmingham. "It’s actually the reduction in the risk compared to somebody that is not vaccinated. But the person that’s not vaccinated doesn’t have a 100% chance."
Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were found to be 95% effective against getting sick with COVID-19, meaning that people in the trial who received the vaccine were 95% less likely than people in the control group to get sick.
"Your true risk, even at the height of a pandemic wave, after you’re vaccinated is probably of the order of 0.05%," explained Dr. Freedman.
He gave the example of a corporation with 50,000 employees.
“If those 50,000 people were not vaccinated at all… probably about maybe 250 would get COVID because that’s the nature of the attack rate of the disease.”
If every single one of those 50,000 people received the vaccine, then after they were fully vaccinated only about 12 people in the company would get infected with the virus.
"It would be a very mild infection because the vaccine really protects even higher than 95% against critical illness or death," said Dr. Freedman. "It’s 5% chance compared to not being vaccinated. So 12 versus 250 in that 50,000 population."
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