As More COVID Restrictions Expire, How Comfortable Should People Be With Crowds?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Some of the Minnesota's last COVID-19 restrictions are about to roll back.
Capacity and distancing limits will end midnight Friday, which means Minnesotans will be getting closer to a lot more people.
But now that the state's entering yet another phase of the pandemic, how comfortable should people be with crowds?
While some people WCCO spoke with Thursday give the changes a thumbs up, experts point out that people are still getting COVID. It's mostly unvaccinated people -- and it's trending younger.
Jill Foster, a University of Minnesota pediatric infectious disease physician, says positivity rates have been especially high in 10 to 19 year olds.
"People that are vaccinated, there's some breakthrough cases, but that's really like one in 1,000 chance that you have that. It's mostly people that are not vaccinated," Foster said. "The ones that are getting hospitalized or having the most severe cases are people in their 40s and 50s, but we're seeing a large number of people in their teens and 20s that are getting COVID."
The Minnesota Department of Health says it's not known when booster shots will be needed, but there's no need to worry about vaccine immunity running out anytime soon.
So even if people feel ready to be in big crowds again, should they feel confident they'll be safe?
"As long as you're with vaccinated people, I think you should feel really confident," Foster said. "Share a cabin, you know, be on the beach together, travel together."
Experts say it's important to still be careful when you're in large, crowded places where you don't know other people's vaccine status, especially if you're not vaccinated.
Even though there's no state mask mandate in Minnesota, the public health recommendation is to wear a mask in public if you haven't been vaccinated.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people delay travel until they're fully vaccinated.