The past 14-ish months have been hard, haven't they? When my kids' schools closed in March of 2020, I had no idea the pandemic would be a very real thing that we were still dealing with in May of 2021. But the fact is that, while things are looking up in the U.S. we are not out of the woods yet and in many other countries the outlook is still very dire.
That's why I was incredibly upset yesterday when the CDC announced that it's okay for fully vaccinated people to be unmasked in nearly any situation. Since simultaneously we have decided as a society that we want to protect people's privacy and not make anyone reveal their vaccination status, this feels like a recipe for disaster. I hope I'm wrong. I hope that a combination of lowering cases and rising vaccinations means that vaccinated people plus unvaccinated people who never believed in masks going unmasks will not lead to a speak in cases. Obviously since this change was announced yesterday the jury is still out.
I have been fully vaccinated for over a month now. Mr. Engineer was fully vaccinated a week later and Squirrelboy (who turned 16 in March, just in time to qualify to be vaccinated when that age group came up) was fully vaccinated two weeks after that. At ten, however, Kittygirl does not qualify to be vaccinated. Vaccines are being tested for her age group and they'll hopefully be approved sometime this summer or early fall at the latest, but, in the meantime, with the new guidance only one member of our family is required to wear a mask.
I tell my kids life is unfair all the time, but this is one little bit of unfairness the rest of the family can rectify just a tiny little bit. Even if lots of other people in our community choose not to wear masks because of the new guidance, our whole family will continue to mask in all the places we have before. We're not going to make Kittygirl be the only one.
With vaccinations on the rise and cases on the decline in the U.S., in person events are starting to happen again. Most relevant to our family, the Friends for Life Orlando Conference, which I blogged about in 2019, is being held in person this summer. In summary, in case you don't want to read that whole post, this is a conference for people with type 1 diabetes of all ages and their families. It's an incredible place to find community with others who understand diabetes, learn new things, and simply have fun. The flagship conference is normally held every July at the Coronado Springs resort at Disney World. In 2020 the Orlando conference went virtual, and the parent organization, Children with Diabetes, has since held several other weekend virtual conferences. They have been well done, but nothing beats an in person experience.
As of the announcement, there was a promise that a ton of safety procedures would be in place. Those include masks for everyone except when eating (and only eating when seated), assigned seating for meals, and significantly reduced capacity allowing for social distancing. We had about a week to decide whether we wanted to take the risk of traveling to Florida at a time we knew the pandemic would still be going on before registration opened. I knew that if we wanted to do it, we should register as soon as possible after registration opened. For the children's programs in particularly, capacity was significantly reduced. There were only 60 spots available for Kittygirl's age group. Mr. Engineer and I talked about it and decided that the risk was small enough with the protocols in place that the experience was worth it for me and Kittygirl. Unfortunately, it won't work for the whole family to attend this year because the dates overlap with Boy Scout camp. We also decided that our risk wasn't greatly increased by spending two days at Disney theme parks after the conference ends.
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