No. A great big FAT NO.
“Your behavior shouldn’t dramatically change, especially in the early days of vaccination in United States,” ABC News warned on Saturday, January 30, 2021. Read story here.
Returning to “normal” will be gradual, a Duke health expert said. And social distancing and masks will remain necessary for a time, according to a Vanderbilt expert.
There are several reasons for that. The vaccines are less than 100% effective, so there’s still some infection risk; it’s unknown whether vaccinated individuals can transmit the virus and infect others; and new variations of the virus are emerging, carrying a risk the vaccines might not work or be as effective against them.
In addition, a crucial part of broader society’s defense against Covid-19 is so-called “herd immunity” — i.e., enough people become immune to stop its spread — and it will take months to vaccinate enough people to achieve that.
Health experts view vaccines as another “tool” to control the virus, not a silver bullet that will allow life to go back to what it was. The general public doesn’t understand this. People have cabin fever, their jobs and livelihoods are on the line, and they want the pandemic to be over. They’re champing at the bit and rarin’ to go.
It won’t be that way, and that’s awfully hard to get people to accept, when you can’t even get them to wear masks.