Tori Rodriguez, MA, LPC, AHC Contributing Writer Tori Rodriguez, MA, LPC, AHC, is an Atlanta-based journalist, licensed psychotherapist, and Ayurvedic health coach, creator of the body-positive wellness company Bettie Page Fitness, and author of 2 books â The Little Book of Bettie: Taking a Page from the Queen of Pinups and Bettie Page: The Lost Years. She holds a BS in psychology from Georgia State University and an MA in counseling psychology from the Georgia School of Professional Psychology. Tori has also managed a medical practice and was instrumental in developing Georgiaâs multispecialty telemedicine program. Photograph courtesy of Brooklyn Brat Images.
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My mother could have been a doctor Purdue, premed, 1938 but like so many women of her era, she got married, started a family, and became a de facto pediatrician for six unruly and often calamity-prone children. She was the one to take us to the doctor for our shots and the one who trooped us down to the emergency room conveniently just a block away from home when we did something really stupid.
Mothers have long been recognized as healthcare decision makers within the family, and that may well be the case when COVID-19 vaccinations become available to children and adolescents. Kaiser Health News reports that more women than men are getting their COVID-19 vaccines, even though more men than women are dying of the disease, and that is about par for the course for us guys.
In springtime a young public health official’s fancy turns to thoughts of … masklessness.
The CDC has lifted the veil, so to speak, and given fully vaccinated people license to breathe the air and see the smiles of others and mix and mingle as we did when rock was young. States will make their own rules, but CDC guidance is meant to be just that, a useful benchmark.
It’s probably easiest now to think about the situations where masks are still recommended for everyone, vaccinated or not. That list includes masking up at crowded outdoor events (concerts, sports events) and indoor places such as hair salons, restaurants, shopping centers, gyms, museums and movie theaters.
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We’ve done a lot of pivoting in the past year, from going to work and going to school to doing both from home. We’ve pivoted from large gatherings and public events to wearing masks and staying six feet apart and watching much of the world go by on television. Front-line workers had to pivot quickly to 24/7 crisis mode with no work-from-home option.
We are now pivoting again in the United States, from a scenario of vaccine demand exceeding supply to one of supply soon exceeding demand. Those who were frantically scrambling for vaccine appointments a couple of months ago can now find them with relative ease. Meanwhile, the CDC has relaxed its guidance on wearing masks outdoors, mostly for the fully vaccinated, while telling us all to keep masking up in indoor public places and outdoor events with big crowds.
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