Are you vaccinated against COVID? Your answer determines how we’ll interact

I need to ask you a personal question: Have you been vaccinated against COVID-19?

It may seem as if it’s none of my business. But the answer determines how you and I will interact.

You see, I’m fully vaccinated.

If you’re fully vaccinated too, experts say I’m free to give you a big hug, sit next to you on the sofa at our next book group meeting and ride unmasked together in the same car.

If not, I’ll request that we keep our distance, cover our faces and get together in the open air.

It’s certainly not the course of action I want to follow. I’m as sick of coronavirus protocols as anyone.

I’ve shed many tears over events that had to be canceled in 2020. I ached for the company of my friends and family.

I’m simply following the latest guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They’re the best knowledge we have at the moment about keeping our population healthy and allowing society to re-open as quickly as possible.

So, I’m going to follow what they recommend. Epidemiologists and public health officials know far more about this than I do.

That means that time spent with unvaccinated people might look different than time spent with their vaccinated coworkers, neighbors and kin.

My actions don’t mean I dislike you. You may very well be my BFF. We’ll just have to continue re-structuring our visits until danger of contracting and spreading the virus has passed.

I don’t need to hear your thoughts about the COVID-19 vaccine. You’re entitled to your opinion, just as I’m entitled to mine.

All I really want to know is if you’ve had your shots or not. That’s the part that impacts me the most.

Some folks view the question of vaccinations as an invasion of privacy.

Institutions and businesses are currently grappling over the legal and moral implications involved.

Yet I find all the wrangling peculiar. Many professional and volunteer organizations routinely require that fingerprint scans and background checks be run on their employees and applicants. Such searches can uncover a host of past issues that may or may not affect the person’s current ability to perform the job.

No one decries “Invasion of privacy!” in those instances. Rather they comply with whatever request is being made.

Yet, ask if that same applicant is fully vaccinated against coronavirus and hackles are instantly raised.

To date, there’s no polite, socially acceptable way to pop the V-question.

We simply have to ask, “Are you vaccinated or not?”

Yes, it may cause a ruckus. A tirade may ensue about distrusting medical science or expressing a lack of concern about contracting the virus.

No problem. I’ll wait patiently until I have an answer.

The nature of our interactions hangs in the balance.