Yes, I'm vaccinated. Yes, I'm still wearing a mask.

Photo by Gilbert Mercier

DOWNEY — Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that those of us who are fully vaccinated could remove our masks in most situations. After over a year of living in a Covid-19 world, I thought that I would have been ecstatic.

Instead, I greeted the news with a nervous chuckle.

I received my second shot of the Pfizer vaccine back in April and have been considered “fully vaccinated” for just about a month. As such, I have started to venture back out into the wide-open world again with a little bit more confidence in my stride.

Even still, I wore my mask; sometimes two.

While California still has strict mandates in place and is not anticipated to reopen completely until June 15, the CDC’s latest rollback seems to have left many –myself included – with more questions than answers.

As such, there are a few reasons why I am not so sure I am ready to take my mask off just yet.

The ability to unmask comes with a significant caveat: “Those who are fully vaccinated.”

While the concept of “fully vaccinated” sounds simple enough, I have yet to hear any compelling or convincing argument on how governments, stores, restaurants, and the like can or will be able to enforce that particular provision.

Everything I have seen to this point seems to depend on the highly undependable “honor system.”

At the time of writing, Los Angeles County is reporting that just over 59% of residents have been administered at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, with over 43% being considered fully vaccinated. While promising, that leaves a significant number of the population without a shot in their arm.

Some cannot be vaccinated for health concerns. Some kids are not eligible yet. Some will ultimately choose not to receive the vaccine, and that is their right.

Who is to say if the person next to you in the grocery store has been vaccinated or not and why?

While we seem to be in the final stretch of the pandemic, we have certainly not crossed the finish line yet. While numbers are low, we cannot neglect that they still do represent a life affected.

Speaking of numbers, while writing this piece I desperately searched for a key bit of evidence or statistics that I could wave around and put on a pedestal; something to say that wearing a mask is still extremely relevant.

The fact is, I couldn’t find any.

Covid rates are continuing to decline. On Tuesday, the county reported only 159 new cases and 12 deaths, which is a far cry from the numbers that we were seeing back in November and December.

Those worried about “breakthrough cases” should take comfort in the fact that they are extremely rare.

As of this writing, the CDC’s website shows only 1,359 hospitalized or fatal vaccine breakthrough cases reported with only 223 deaths, compared to the over 115 million in the United States who it says are fully vaccinated.

Everything points to us being on the precipice of normality.

However, mentally – for me at least – it is not so simple as data.

It has been an agonizingly long road even to just get to this point. For over a year, we have been advised to stay home and – if we did need to leave for any reason – to be as quick and strategic as possible while maintaining a healthy amount of suspicion about those around us.

“Treat everyone as if they’re Covid positive.”

It was a lesson learned hard and fast for many of us. We lost jobs and income. We lost family members and loved ones. Some of us became sick ourselves.

I trust the science. I do not dispute what medical and government officials are telling us. I believe that those of us who are fully vaccinated are adequately protected.

I am just not ready to trust the world again yet; not completely at least.

My trust and my faith need to grow again. Like a small child in a swimming pool, I need to slowly walk down the steps and doggy paddle in the shallow end to get accustomed to the water before I decide to dive into the deep end again.

If you decide that now is the time to take off your masks (whether vaccinated or not), I hope that you act responsibly, safely, and courteously to your neighbors and the community around you.

As for me, I think I will hold on for just a little while longer.