There seems to be a lot of confusion around the question of whether you can resume normal activities when you are vaccinated and why that still involves some risk. In case it's helpful, here's how my husband @jeremyfaust, an ER doc/researcher, and I are approaching this. (1/6)

He is already vaccinated. I am not and will likely not be for months.

Sometime soon, our parents, who live on the other side of the country, will be fully vaccinated.

When they are, we really want to see them and for them to see our toddler daughter. (2/6)

We will probably allow our vaccinated parents, who have been effectively sheltering at home since last March, to fly across the country to see us.

(I say probably, because I hope case rates will also have continued to fall, but with the variants, who knows.) (3/6)

We don't yet know if and when the vaccines reduce transmission. So there is a chance - probably small, but we don't know - that they could get infected en route and transmit the virus to my daughter and me.

That's a risk I think I'm willing to take for us. BUT... (4/6)

We have a responsibility NOT to risk spreading the virus to others. So if our parents visit, we will notify my daughter's preschool, and she will likely have to stay out of school for some days until our parents can pass an incubation period and get tested. (5/6)

So, yes, vaccinated people can hug each other without endangering *themselves*. But until we learn more about the vaccines' effect on transmission, they should not hug each other and then have close contact with other people who don't want to absorb the risk of that hug (6/6)