DENVER (KDVR) — Sarabeth Jones is planning a trip to Mississippi to visit her father, mother, and stepfather. All of them will be fully vaccinated.
“I’ve been kind of holding out for this for so long, and I’m so excited that they have gotten it,” Jones said.
Since March, Jones has only seen her father through glass at his VA nursing home.”He cannot wait to kind of put his arms around me,” Jones said.
But her mother and her stepfather say they will continue with all the same precautions they were taking before they got the vaccine.
“They are still not comfortable. They said we are going to keep doing things the way they are. We feel like the shot protects us to a degree, but with new strains out, and it’s just still a real unknown,” Jones said.
So, she is planning for more masks, and more social distancing.
“I want them to be healthy, of course, but it made me kind of sad, because I was hoping this shot meant something different, and I’m not so sure that it really will,” Jones said.
That disappointment is something that providers are hearing a lot.
“I know that our hearts are really wanting to connect,” Laura-Anne Cleveland said, the Associate Chief Nursing Officer at Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver.
“Those who have the vaccine are protected from COVID up to 95%. However, they could be a carrier, silent carrier of COVID,” she said.
That means they could give COVID to you, and there’s still a small chance you could give it to them. Cleveland still recommends washing hands, socially distancing, and wearing a mask. Plus, she says be cautious with your hugs.
“Wear a mask and do the side hugs where you are not in each other’s face,” she suggested.
Dr. Wendolyn Gozansky with Kaiser Permanente agrees that caution is still required.
“There is still risk at this point, and that’s what we need people to understand, and to just really take those precautions,” Gozansky said.
“I think the key thing the vaccine allows us to do is to continue to have interactions that we feel more comfortable about. But we should still keep that social distance.”