Your questions, answered We invited Post Opinions contributor Dr. Leana Wen to answer one of our reader questions. She has a new newsletter, out every Thursday, that features a Q&A with readers. Click here to sign up for "The Checkup with Dr. Wen." "I want to visit family in Florida at Thanksgiving. I am 75 and a diabetic, and I don't want to drive myself. The problem is the person I would drive with, on an 8-hour trip, is unvaccinated. I am fully vaccinated and might have a booster by then. Is it safe to make this drive if we both wear masks in the car?" — Alice in North Carolina I certainly understand the desire to see family over Thanksgiving! Given your age and underlying medical condition (diabetes), you are at elevated risk of having severe disease if you were to contract covid-19. Getting vaccinated certainly reduces your likelihood of getting the virus, and a third dose — a booster — would enhance your protection. The booster, though, is not bulletproof armor. Even with the booster, you could still contract covid-19. To optimize your protection, I'd advise that you get the booster dose at least two weeks before your trip. There are two issues to consider regarding the covid-19 safety of your trip. First is the one that you mentioned around travel itself. Spending 8 hours in a car with an unvaccinated individual definitely carries risk, even if you are both masked the entire time. If this is the only possible method of travel for you, is it at all an option to ask that individual to quarantine for at least three days and then get tested before getting in the car with you? (Of course, I'd be remiss not to ask if there is any chance this person might be open to a conversation about vaccination. The vaccine protects them, as well as you and anyone else they come into contact with.) If your potential driver is unwilling to quarantine and test, and also won't get vaccinated, you could reduce your risk by keeping all the windows open and sitting in the back seat on the opposite side of the driver. Wear an N95 or KN95 mask the entire time you are in the vehicle with the driver, who should also be masked the entire time. I also want to flag a second issue, which is your risk exposure when you arrive in Florida to visit your family. Is everyone that you're visiting vaccinated? Are there plans to go to crowded indoor restaurants that don't require proof of vaccination? It wouldn't make sense to take such careful precautions during your drive only to have high-risk exposures at your destination. None of this is to say that you shouldn't visit your family, or even that you shouldn't go by car with an unvaccinated driver. At this point in the pandemic, there are few clear-cut answers. Almost everything we do has some degree of risk. People need to choose activities based on their own medical circumstances, their risk tolerance, and, importantly, the value of the activity to them. If they still want to do the activity, there are ways to reduce that risk as much as possible. |