Chasing Life

 

Chasing Life

 

For more than a year now, many of us have followed the standard drill: wash our hands, stay 6 feet apart, choose outdoor activities over indoors, and -- above all else: wear a mask.   But now, the rules have changed. For those of us who are vaccinated, in most situations, masks are no longer required.   While the news was certainly a cause for celebration, it also was a cause for confusion. So, how do we calculate that risk of whether to put on a mask?   When we try to solve problems or make decisions, we rely on “heuristics” -- a fancy name for the rules of thumb, intuition and mental shortcuts that help with our judgment, according to Eve Wittenberg, a health decision scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.   Wittenberg said that we're not used to doing the kind of math that's required for the risk assessment involving the new mask guidance: We can’t rely on the “existing calculus in our heads” because the situation is not familiar. Additionally, we don’t know the probabilities of certain outcomes or the different factors that play into a situation like this one.   So how safe is being unmasked? Well, it’s not 100% safe. For people who are vaccinated, there can be what’s termed “breakthrough infections,” which means a person can get infected even after getting vaccinated. But they’re rare.   And the second point -- and this is important for people who live with a child under 12 or someone who for health-related reasons can’t mount an immune response from a vaccine -- even if you do get infected, the science is beginning to show that you're very unlikely to then be contagious enough to spread the virus to somebody else in your family or community.   But the other question is: How risk-averse are you? That can be difficult to calculate, since risk and benefits are different for most people.   James Hammitt, a professor of economics and decision sciences and the director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, says a simple way to choose is to make a direct comparison: “Is the value of the concert [for example] greater than the harm from this risk to me?”   But it’s also OK if you want to keep the mask on. In fact, I carry a mask in my pocket all the time and if somebody is very concerned, out of respect, I’ll put it on. Shaming someone who wants to wear a mask serves no advantage. People are nervous and people are cautious. It's been a traumatic year for us all, and some of us might take longer than others to get to where they feel safe enough to go mask-free.