Coronavirus

What's The Risk Of A Gathering Of 40 Or More After The Vaccine?

In our series "What's the Risk?" experts weigh in on what risks different scenarios pose for transmitting COVID-19.

What's The Risk Of A Gathering Of 40 Or More After The Vaccine?
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As more people become vaccinated, you might be wondering about the risks of getting sick with COVID-19. 

We asked the experts, what’s the risk of a gathering of 40 people or more after being vaccinated?

Their take: The risk of contracting COVID-19 is high.

"We're not quite at the point of large gatherings of 40 people or more," Dr. Irfan N. Hafiz, infectious disease physician and northwest region chief medical officer at Northwestern Medicine, said.

"In large groups, it's much harder to control the safety in those settings, which is why this is still not recommended," Dr. Kelly Cawcutt, associate medical director of infection control and epidemiology at Nebraska Medical Center, said.

"If you have people in that group that you don't know their vaccination status, you would be definitely wanting to continue masking, following social distancing protocols while you are with that size of a group," Katie Cary, assistant vice president of infection prevention for HCA Continental Division, told Newsy. 

"It's going to be a little hard because right now, no one knows who else has been vaccinated and how many other people. There's still only a small fraction of the United States that's been vaccinated. But that number is growing and growing. I'm not sure when, but at some point in time, we're going to reach that threshold where things are going to really open up," Dr. Frank Esper, pediatric infectious diseases specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, said. 

For more answers on what is low, medium, or high risk, visit newsy.com/whatstherisk.