I Can Breathe Again: Older Adults Begin to Test Freedom After Covid Vaccinations – Kaiser Health News

Judith Graham

With a mix of relief and caution, older adults fully vaccinated against covid-19 are moving out into the world and resuming activities put on hold during the pandemic.

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Many are making plans to see adult children and hug grandchildren they havent visited for months or longer. Others are getting together with friends indoors, for the first time in a long time.

People are scheduling medical appointments that had been delayed and putting trips to destinations near and far on calendars. Simple things that felt unsafe pre-vaccination now feel possible: petting a neighbors dog, going for a walk in the park, stopping at a local hangout for a cup of coffee.

I feel I can breathe again, said Barry Dym, 78, of Lexington, Massachusetts, expressing a widely shared sense of freedom.

The rapid rollout of covid vaccines to people 65 and older makes this possible.As of Monday, nearly 49% of seniors in the U.S. had been fully vaccinated, while nearly 73% had received one dose of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.(A third vaccine, from Johnson & Johnson, became available earlier this month and requires just one dose.)

Recent guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognizes the protection that vaccines offer. According to the CDC, people who are fully vaccinated can meet indoors without masks, without incurring significant risk. Also, they can visit relatively safely with people who havent been vaccinated, so long as those individuals are healthy and gatherings remain small.

Still, with coronavirus variants circulating and 55,000 new infections reported daily, the CDC continues to recommend precautions elsewhere, such as wearing masks, staying physically distant in public and refraining from air travel.

How are older adults whove been fully vaccinated a privileged group, to be sure, given the millions of seniors whove yet to get shots balancing a desire to shed isolation with a need to stay safe amid a pandemic thats not yet over? I asked several people Ive spoken with previously about their plans and their reflections on the difficult year weve been through.

Mardell Reed, 80, of Pasadena, California, told me she wasnt sure shed get the vaccine originally, because I was concerned about the process going so fast and drug companies maybe producing something that wasnt up to par. But she changed her mind once we all started hearing from actual scientists rather than politicians.

Now, Reed tries to educate people she knows who remain reluctant to get the shots. One of them is her 83-year-old stepsister. No one had explained anything about the vaccines to her, Reed told me. I talked about all the things that would be possible seeing her daughter, who lives up north, seeing more of her grandkids, and I think that convinced her.

Reed used to walk in her neighborhood regularly before the pandemic but stopped when she became afraid of being around other people. Reviving that habit is a goal.

Among Reeds other priorities in the months ahead: visiting with her daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and seeing her primary care physician, a dentist, a neurologist whos treating nerve damage and an eye doctor. I didnt want to go to places where people might be sick this last year; now, its time for me to catch up on all that, she said.

Harry Hutson, 73, and his wife, Mikey, 70, invited two couples to their house in Baltimore, on separate nights, after getting their second Moderna shots in February and waiting two weeks. Were going right into having safe dinners with people whove been vaccinated, Hutson told me.

He feels a touch of lingering uncertainty, however. While were 95% sure this is the right thing to do, were a little tentative. For a whole year, weve had Covid is death engrained in us. After that, you cant just go back to normal, just like that, he said.

Hutson has continued working as an executive coach during the pandemic and has recently been giving talks on hope to business groups, nonprofit organizations and churches. What I tell people is Youll help yourself by helping others. Were all emerging from trauma and healing has to be a collective, not an individual, endeavor.

On a personal note, Hutson is going through an attic full of yearbooks, letters and photos, curating my familys history. He hopes to make an across-the-country road trip with his wife later this year visiting the family of his wifes son in Madison, Wisconsin, his daughters family in Portland, Oregon, and his brother in Eugene, Oregon, as well as several friends.

Marian Hollingsworth, 67, of La Mesa, California, spent last spring and summer sequestered at home with her husband, Ed, 72, who had stomach cancer, focused on keeping Ed safe from the coronavirus. But his illness progressed and, in early October, Ed died at home, where the couples four adult children had gathered to say goodbye.

Since then, Hollingsworths son Morgan, 27, who lives in New York City, has stayed with his mom, keeping her company. But grief struck hard: Hollingsworth lost weight and couldnt sleep at night despite profound fatigue. It was like getting hit by the biggest Mack truck you could find, she told me.

The pandemics resurgence in the fall and winter made adjusting to Eds loss even more of a challenge, Hollingsworth said, since she couldnt get together with friends or get hugs a form of contact she longed for. To this day, his clothes hang in the closet because the places shed like to send them arent accepting donations.

When Hollingsworth became fully vaccinated in early March, she said, she felt for the first time that my head was coming up above water. Although shes not sure, yet, how much she wants to go out and see people, shes looking forward to simple pleasures: petting the neighbors dog and going on distanced walks with a few friends. Im going to be cautious until theres more clarity about whats really safe, she told me.

Wilma Jenkins, 82, who lives in South Fulton, Georgia, has struggled with depression off and on for years a challenge shes spoken about publicly in talks to older adults. This fall and winter, isolated at home, its been rough for me its just been so sad, she admitted.

Even though Jenkins describes herself as an introvert, she made sure she had regular social contact before the pandemic. Most days, shed take herself out to lunch at local restaurants, chatting with the wait staff and other regular customers.

One of Jenkins great loves is music the blues and jazz. A few days after we spoke, she was planning to return to her favorite nightclub, St. James Live in Atlanta, to catch a show her first such outing since becoming fully vaccinated in mid-February.

Im not afraid to move back into the world, but I will continue to be masked and socially distanced and wash my hands, she told me.

Jenkins plans to start walking outside again; go to restaurants, so long as theyre not too crowded; and resume visits with her two daughters, both physicians, who live in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. Her most ambitious goal: flying out to San Diego in late July for a celebration marking her grandson Jamals retirement from the Navy.

Barry Dym is haunted by an image thats recurred often during the past year: Hes on a moving sidewalk, unable to get off, being hurried to a destination he doesnt want to reach: old age. The image is associated with the pandemic and knee pain that has worsened, painfully, over the past six months, making walking harder.

This past year was a time of adjustment for Dym, who retired four years ago from his work as a consultant to nonprofit organizations. One of the lessons of covid for me was I still need to feel useful and I love helping people. I realized maybe Id pulled back too far.

So, Dym expanded his coaching and mentoring practice an activity he plans to continue. Whatever I can do to help make this world better, Im not going to stop trying, he said.

Outside of travel plans with his wife, Franny to the Florida Keys this spring, to the Berkshires in western Massachusetts in the summer, and perhaps to Israel in the fall Dym said he finds himself more curious than anything about what lies ahead. I really dont know what my life will be like. Ill have to find out.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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I Can Breathe Again: Older Adults Begin to Test Freedom After Covid Vaccinations - Kaiser Health News