Telling people it’s okay and safe to behave differently and embrace more freedoms — and people — after they get vaccinated, and trusting them to do so responsibly, reinforces the idea that getting vaccinated equals meaningful change for the quality of someone’s personal life.
Vaccination isn’t just about macro outcomes or about flattening curves, reducing risk, saving lives, and bringing back the economy; it’s an opportunity to get our collective family and social lives back, an opportunity to counteract the anxiety so many have learned to feel about being less than six feet away from other people. Social distance has been necessary, and still will be in public places for a while to come, but it will never be natural. The vaccinated and their friends and family can and should starting closing the distance — between each other, and between the pandemic and whatever the new normal turns out to be after.
So if you know one of the 30 million Americans who has been fully vaccinated, go give them a hug, right now. (Or make a plan to as soon as you can.) If you’re vaccinated yourself, find somebody to hug, and put that immunological armor and freedom to good, in-person use. The pandemic isn’t over. Risks remain and will continue to. But as the vaccines keep going into arms, for more and more people — especially those living by themselves or remaining isolated from their friends and family — whatever comes next, they literally won’t be alone. Not anymore.
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