| In this week's edition of the Covid Q&A, we look at how the vaccines might help life get back to the way it was before the pandemic. In hopes of making this very confusing time just a little less so, each week Bloomberg Prognosis is picking one question sent in by readers and putting it to an expert in the field. This week's question comes to us from William and Sheryl in Las Vegas. The pair wonders how much a vaccine might protect them from contracting Covid-19, and how that might affect their daily lives. They ask:
Can we safely resume going out to dinner and shopping?
As vaccines roll out across the world, we have heard from many readers with similar questions. Michal Caspi Tal, an immunologist at Stanford University, explained that it's a little more complicated than just getting vaccinated and going back to life as it was before the coronavirus. "The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are most likely to prevent any disease symptoms of Covid-19 but may not prevent the SARS-CoV-2 virus from getting into the body," she said. In other words, we don't know yet whether the vaccine just prevents symptoms from occurring, or whether it actually prevents infection. So once vaccinated, you could still contract an infection and potentially pass it along to others. "The way I like to think about the vaccination efficacy of 95% is that if you are exposed to infection, your chance of actually getting sick now goes down to 1 out of 20," she said. "The vaccine rollout for SARS-CoV-2 will take a while, and during that time while some people are vaccinated and not others, the vaccine will be most helpful to those individuals who are themselves fully vaccinated."  India launched one of the world's largest coronavirus vaccination drives on Saturda. Photographer: T. Narayan/Bloomberg It's also important to maintain practices like social distancing to protect those for whom the vaccine might not work. "When community transmission rates are very high, as they are now, you will hear of people getting infected even after the vaccines," said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. "But as more and more people get vaccinated, the chances of that happening will drop by a lot. At that point, we can very much look forward to going out to dinner, etc., and still be safe."
Postscript: AgustÃn from Miami wrote in with a follow-up question to last week's newsletter. A reader had asked whether measures like mask-wearing are still effective against new, seemingly more contagious variants of Covid-19. In her response, Bertha Hidalgo, an epidemiologist at the University of Alabama, mentioned that it's now more important than ever to keep wearing masks, indoors and out. "The only time I don't wear a mask outdoors is when I go biking," AgustÃn wrote. "I'm wondering if I have I been taking an unnecessary risk all this time." We followed up with Hidalgo on behalf of AugustÃn. "Indoors is far riskier, but outdoors is not risk-free if around others," she said. "Time, space, place, people matter. So a quick run by someone who is infected is likely not as big a risk as standing outside talking to someone. Both are outdoors, but have varying degrees of risk associated." AgustÃn, we hope that helps. Thanks to all of you for writing in this week! Next Sunday, we'll be answering the best question we receive again. So if you have any, we want to hear from you.
We'd also love to hear from you if you have concerns about Covid-19 vaccines. What are they? Submit your comments and queries via CovidQs@bloomberg.net--Kristen V. Brown | 
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