Dowdy says he’s vaccinated and boosted and feels well-protected from hospitalization, but he’s still trying to avoid catching COVID.

“I just don’t want to be out of work. I don’t want to be spreading it to my family and making them have to miss work and school,” he says. “And so from that perspective, cases actually matter more than hospitalizations”

Dr. Robert Wachter says he’s waiting for daily case rates in his community to drop down to 10 cases per 100,000 people per day.

“There’s nothing magic about the number 10,” says Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at University of California, San Francisco. “If someone else prefers 15 or 20, that’s fine.” He’s looking for a number that “implies a lower amount of virus in the community.”