What Parents Need to Know About the New Mask Guidance – Slate

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last week that people vaccinated against COVID-19 no longer need to wear masks indoors. Plenty has been written about whether this decision was well communicated, whether it was too hasty, and whether it could possibly have the intended effect of swaying anyone toward vaccines. But if you’re a parent like me, already exhausted from a year of trying to take care of a small person during a global crisis, you likely have one overarching question: What am I supposed to do now?

“It seems like kids are just getting overlooked in this,” says Tara Smith, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Kent State University in Ohio and parent of a 7-year-old. To navigate this new morass of risk calculations, I spoke to Smith and Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor at the University of California, San Francisco. They had somewhat different outlooks—illustrating just how much work is being thrust on parents right now to make constant judgment calls.

How much should we really worry about the coronavirus variants? – Slate

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New coronavirus variants are spreading: the so-called South Africa, U.K., and Brazil variants, as well as newer variants like the ones that have popped up in New York City and California. You might have some questions about what this all means for vaccines, masks (and lack thereof), and our general future. I spoke to four experts, and here’s what they say we know—and what we’re still waiting to find out.

COVID-19 vaccines: What does 95% efficacy really mean? – LiveScience

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It doesn’t mean 5% of vaccinated people get infected. And it’s not just an academic question. How people understand these numbers affects how they think about the vaccine, whether they get it and how they behave after getting it, all of which have implications for the pandemic on a larger scale.

Pregnant People Are Not in Covid-19 Vaccine Trials, and That’s a Problem – Elemental

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Excluding pregnant people from vaccine trials has been the default for decades, but experts say this should be rethought — especially now.

Pregnant and breastfeeding people have not been included in any of the Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials for the U.S. market. Will their exclusion delay rollout for them, or will it affect pregnant people’s trust that the vaccine is safe for them? How comprehensively will their reactions to the vaccines be recorded?