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Some of America’s most vulnerable citizens are partying like it’s 2021 after getting COVID vaccines. We’re seeing pictures of 80-year-olds dancing and drinking while millennials look on forlorn. Mercer Island MD Dr. Gordon Cohen joined Seattle’s Morning News to discuss vaccines and the nature in which society is reopening.

“There’s sort of a heartwarming today about [being] fully vaccinated and time to party, if you are 70. And the whole point of the article was talking about older Americans who are taking advantage of the fact that they’re the ones who have gotten the vaccine, so they’re the ones who are now going out into the community, living it up and having a good time,” he said.

“And it’s coming sort of at the same time that there’s still a lot of concern from the government and even the CDC, which I guess is an arm of the government, saying, ‘Well, hold on a minute. People shouldn’t be going out into the community yet because there may be future surges coming,'” he added.

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Dr. Cohen says there’s a great deal of confusion at the moment regarding vaccines, partially as a result of changing guidance and regulations, as well as different approaches in different states.

“So there’s a lot of confusing and mixed information about what’s going on, and I think that’s been one of the real challenges of this whole COVID pandemic is that we’re learning as we go, and it’s sort of unclear what guidance should be followed,” he said. “The CDC has changed their recommendations numerous times. Different states are doing different things.”

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“There’s different incidences of COVID in different communities, even within the same state. And there’s even different variants,” he continued. “So it’s created this sort of mass confusion about, well, how do we actually behave, and what do we actually do?”

Even with the vaccine, Dr. Cohen still finds himself taking the basic precautions.

“I’ve made the decision that, look, I’m fully vaccinated, but I’m still going to take precautions. I think it’s the safest thing to do because the one thing about the vaccine is that it has a significant efficacy in preventing you from getting the illness. It also has efficacy in terms of reducing the severity of your illness, but it doesn’t completely prevent you from getting it,” he said.

“So there is still the opportunity to get it and not be as sick,” he noted. “But if you get it, you’re still going to end up being quarantined. You’re not going to be going to work because you have the risk of spreading it to other people.”

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