After nearly a year of pandemic, many of us are craving connection with loved ones we haven't seen for a long while, like elderly parents. NPR’s Jane Greenhalgh looks into whether it’s safe to visit a parent who has been vaccinated and finds out that the answer is ... complicated.
Infectious disease specialists say even if an elderly parent is two weeks past receiving both shots of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine -- a time when full immunity should kick in -- you should remain cautious when considering a visit if you have not yet been vaccinated.
That’s because there are more contagious COVID variants swirling around, and there's some risk your parents could still get sick if you expose them -- or that they could be carriers, and get you sick.
The only thing that will eliminate the risk of infection will be when the U.S. reaches herd immunity, and the virus is brought down to extremely low levels.
But if you can stay safely apart, masked and ideally outside, the visit might ok, but do avoid lots of kissing and hugging, the experts say.
Reports of healthy and wealthy people bribing doctors to give them COVID-19 vaccinations ahead of the scheduled rollout are enraging. But there are other situations where the ethics of getting a vaccine out of turn -- i.e., ahead of those deemed highest priority -- may be less black and white.
NPR’s Pien Huang spoke to bioethicists about the ins and outs. They all agreed that in one case line-jumping might be ok: If you find out that a pharmacy or supermarket is going to have to throw out vaccines for lack of takers, you should 100 percent get it to prevent that from happening. If you’re in the right place at the right time, take that shot.
Even better, contact a neighbor or a friend who may have an underlying health condition or lives with an elderly person who could use the shot instead.
Are you a Romanticizer, a Maximizer, or a Hesitator? Your success at dating may depend on tuning in to your type, according to behavioral scientist and dating coach Logan Ury in her new book, How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love
Romanticizers are focused on love’s fairytale, Maximizers swipe through all possible matches on a dating app, and Hesitators, well, they are self-explanatory.
No matter what your type, Ury has some tips for how to approach dating, even in a pandemic, including getting into the right frame of mind and viewing dating as a learning process.
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