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Vaccination doesn’t mean you can ditch the mask
Ken Suarez reports
LAKELAND, Fla. - After you are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, what’s your life going to be like? Can you be footloose and fancy-free again just like before the pandemic hit?
Experts say probably not.
"What we know is following your second vaccination, you’re 95% less likely to develop COVID in any form, and you are nearly 100% less likely, as close to it as we have seen, to develop severe disease or death," Dr. Hal Escowitz of Lakeland Regional Health told FOX 13.
LINK: COVID-19 vaccine distribution information in Tampa Bay area counties
What is still unclear is whether you can be asymptomatic and pass the virus on to other people.
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Mounting concern over COVID variants
New mutations of the COVID-19 virus seem to be in most major countries and experts are starting to be concerned one or some of them could become more dangerous.
"What we don’t know at this point is how well that second vaccine, either of the vaccine series, prevents transmission in the community," said Escowitz.
Escowitz says that’s why it is important for people to continue to practice what he calls "tried and true" precautions, such as wearing a mask, social distancing, especially indoors, and washing their hands frequently.
He says even though there is very little data at this point, it appears that the vaccines are more effective against the British variant than the South African one.