[ From Eli Grober, contributor to The New Yorker magazine and former Tonight Show staff writer. ]
“Fully vaccinated people can visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors . . . and refrain from quarantine and testing following a known COVID-19 exposure if the vaccinated person remains asymptomatic”.
—Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here at the C.D.C., we have announced a new set of public-health recommendations for people who are fully vaccinated against covid-19. However, there are a number of things that vaccinated people are still not allowed to do. Please familiarize yourself with this list.
Reply All
Once you are fully vaccinated, you are still not allowed to reply all to an e-mail that was clearly not meant to solicit such a reply. Similarly, getting the vaccine does not give you the green light to cc two hundred people on an e-mail. Better to bcc them.
Stay Unmuted During Group Zooms
Just because you’re fully vaccinated doesn’t mean that everyone wants to hear all the sniffing and typing and fidgeting you do while in a Zoom meeting. Mute yourself, whether you’ve got the shot or not.
Walk in the Middle of a Busy Sidewalk
Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson—none of these will prevent other people from getting really annoyed that you won’t stay on your side of the pavement.
Not Order Fries and Then Eat Your Friends’ Fries Off Their Plates
No kind of vaccine will ever make it O.K. to do this. Even if you’re vaccinated and eating outdoors, masked and distanced, just order your own damn fries.
Play Devil’s Advocate
You may be protected against covid-19, but you’re not protected against looking like a jerk. Just admit that you like being disagreeable, and then keep the rest to yourself.
Eat Hot Dogs Horizontally, As if They’re Corn on the Cob
Some people like to eat their hot dogs in this fashion. This is super weird, and, no matter how vaccinated you are, you are not allowed to do it.
Use Both Armrests on a Plane or a Train
Just because it’s safe for you to travel again doesn’t mean that you’re the only one travelling. Are both of your elbows really that tired?
Get On the Subway Before Letting Riders Off
You have never been and are still not allowed to do this. You may have the antibodies, but you don’t get to be anti everyone else’s body.
Suddenly Stop Walking Up a Flight of Stairs to Look at Your Phone
Like developing a vaccine, going up stairs is an activity that demands your full attention. You may be immune to the novel coronavirus, but you’re certainly not immune to a person behind you walking straight into your butt. Get to the top of the stairs, then look at your phone, and then be grateful for modern medicine.
Suggest That You and Your Friends Split the Bill, Even Though You Ordered a Steak and Everyone Else Just Got Drinks
Inoculation doesn’t stop this from being wrong. In fact, doing this might give you covid. The data isn’t in yet.
This list will be updated regularly based on community-spread levels of sars-CoV-2, and also on community-spread levels of doing really annoying things.