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Getting everyone vaccinated in the United States has become much harder now that demand for the Covid-19 vaccine is flagging. America’s vaccination strategy needs to change to address this, and it starts with understanding the specific reasons people have not been vaccinated yet. The conventional approach to understanding whether someone will get vaccinated is asking people how likely they are to get the vaccine and then building a demographic profile based on their answers: Black, white, Latinx, Republican, Democrat. But this process isn’t enough: Just knowing that Republicans are less likely to get vaccinated doesn’t tell us how to get them vaccinated. It’s more important to understand why people are still holding out, where those people live and how to reach them. (Sema Sgaier, 5/18)

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last Thursday that it was revising its guidance and eliminating the indoor mask requirements for vaccinated people in most places, my group text of mothers — which has gotten me through the last 15 months — responded immediately. “Tell me you don’t have young children without telling me," wrote one of my friends, in reference to the ongoing Twitter and TikTok meme challenge. "The CDC will go first.” (Joy Engel, 5/17)

In March 2006, a distant friend — now a dear one — gave me one of her kidneys. Unfortunately, that kidney had a short run, lasting only about 10 years when it should have worked for about twice that long. And so another earthbound saint, a friend who watched me struggle to find the first donor, offered me one of hers. Two times in the space of a decade, then, I became the beneficiary of one of the greatest acts of human altruism: living organ donation. Now, I find myself dependent on others yet again. This time, my health relies on people to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. (Sally Satel, 5/17)

Let me make sure I’ve got this right. The government is telling Americans who have been vaccinated that we no longer have to wear masks but those who haven’t been vaccinated do. And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, “Fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing.” (Dahleen Glanton, 5/17)

Mask on or mask off? Right now it depends on who you ask, and that’s a problem. Prior to vaccines, face coverings were our best defense against COVID-19 and a routine part of our lives for the past year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidance on mask-wearing for fully vaccinated people last week, and the nation has been stuck in a state of profound confusion ever since. (5/17)

Although I haven’t seen my friends in over a year, we’ve been in touch nearly every day of the pandemic. Yes, we were all wearing masks. No, we weren’t going out to eat. Yes, we planned to take the shot. No, we weren’t gonna skip the line. Yes, we’ve finally been vaxxed. Whenever we do get together — and quite honestly we don’t know when that will be — we know that we’ve done all we can not to put ourselves or our loved ones at risk. (Elizabeth Wellington, 5/17)