Outdoor dining, summer travel, haircuts: How experts are assessing risk during the pandemic
Yahoo! called on our four in-house medical experts and asked them to share the risk they will and will not take during a pandemic.
Video Transcript
JENNIFER HARTSTEIN: If I can't maintain six feet of distance, my mask is on at all times.
DARA KASS: But I still wear a mask every day everywhere I go whenever I'm outside, walking, seeing other people.
UCHE BLACKSTOCK: The minute I walk out my apartment door, I have a mask on. It doesn't matter where I'm going.
DARA KASS: We've been consistent about how we've let people into our house. We do let our kids have friends over inside with a mask, outside they can sit six feet apart.
JENNIFER HARTSTEIN: I do hand sanitize a lot, although I actually prefer washing my hands to hand sanitizing. Both are very important to do. I think soap and water is really the best way to go.
KAVITA PATEL: As the pandemic kind of kept going and going, I started using online grocery ordering. I have had to go to the store just for sometimes last-minute things. But I really do try to go at off hours. And again, I always wear a mask.
JENNIFER HARTSTEIN: When we go to the grocery store, I tend to wear gloves. It's the only time I wear gloves when I go out. And I wash my food the same way I always did. I don't kind of go crazy over it. I'm mindful.
KAVITA PATEL: The hardest part of this pandemic is that I've accepted the fact that I'm just not going to see my family probably until we have a vaccine. And I know that sounds incredibly harsh. But as a doctor, I am pretty high risk myself. And I do not want to expose my elderly parents or anybody else to that risk.
JENNIFER HARTSTEIN: Depending on whose house it is, my limits might be different. So I have some friends who I know exactly how they've been quarantining. And I feel much more comfortable in their house without a mask. Whereas my parents just came back from Florida and are in quarantine and I went to see them, but I wore a mask and they wore a mask.
DARA KASS: So I think the way we interact with people has fundamentally changed. And I don't think it's going to go back anytime soon. You hug and kiss your immediate family, maybe your brothers and sisters, but I would even argue that's probably too far.
UCHE BLACKSTOCK: Definitely no summer camp. I made a decision early on in the pandemic make that no matter even if the situation got better, we weren't going to do even day camp.
KAVITA PATEL: But I do not feel confident that we have enough data about children to send them back to school. But I will say that if my children were older or if I was really unable to find a way to work and provide childcare, I would be considering sending them. But I would make them-- I would make sure they're wearing masks. I would really make sure that my children understood all the ways to protect themselves and others before I sent them back.
DARA KASS: I am absolutely dining outside. And I am absolutely drinking outside. I think that it's really important to remember that we have to find a new normal.
JENNIFER HARTSTEIN: I have returned to getting my hair cut. I have gotten my hair colored. I have an upcoming nail appointment. But I'm really mindful of what are the salons doing to keep me safe? And what am I doing to keep them safe?
UCHE BLACKSTOCK: I feel like the gym is a prime environment for there to be transmission of the virus. I think until the virus is under control, you won't catch me in the gym.
KAVITA PATEL: I do not think we will have a vaccine that regular people can get until at least early to mid-2021. And that's just because it takes a long time to make these vaccines.
UCHE BLACKSTOCK: I think ultimately we'll probably have a vaccine that's like the flu vaccine that works partially.
JENNIFER HARTSTEIN: Fingers crossed, hope we have a vaccine. The hard part about vaccines is we need empirically supported data that it's effective. So it's not something we can rush.
