| In this week's edition of the Covid Q&A, we look at the ever-changing rules on wearing masks. 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 experts in the field. This week's question comes to us from Mary Jean in Birmingham, Alabama. Now that things are opening back up, Mary Jean finds herself a little confused about when and when not to where a mask. Mary Jean asks: I still don't feel safe going into a grocery store or other public place
without a mask, even though I'm fully vaccinated. I would like to know if it would be safe to go back to my manicurist. Any advice?
Anyone who has forgone a haircut or a manicure over the past year can sympathize with this struggle. A fresh manicure can be invigorating, but how much risk is it worth? Those sorts of questions have in some ways become even more complicated as the world has started to look a little bit more normal. For the vaccinated, the risks of such activities are vastly reduced, but with the coronavirus still in circulation, they still aren't zero. To make matters even more confusing, guidance surrounding measures like socially distancing have rapidly changed in recent weeks, leading some health experts to criticize the moves.
On May 13, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that fully vaccinated Americans may shed their masks in most situations, including indoors and in large group settings. Even the vaccinated, however, are still being asked to mask-up on buses, trains and planes, as well as in hospitals.
"The problem is people interpreted that as a signal that you don't need masks anymore, which absolutely is not the case," Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, said in an interview at the Bloomberg Businessweek virtual summit this past week.  Guests at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg The relaxed mask guidance was prompted by new data that suggests vaccinated people are both highly unlikely to become ill from Covid-19 and also unlikely to transmit the virus that causes it. But unlikely doesn't mean impossible. Of the more than 100 million people who have been fully vaccinated in the U.S., several thousand have still gotten Covid-19, and over 100 have died.
For now, says Bertha Hidalgo, an epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a good operating principal is better safe than sorry.
"The mental gymnastics needed for risk assessment and decision-making have been exhausting, but vaccines help to take a lot of uncertainty out of it," she wrote in an email. "The vaccines work incredibly well, as do masks, so masks + vaccination = a much needed manicure."
Jeanne Marrazzo, an infectious disease specialist who also works at UAB, says she would also feel more comfortable wearing a mask indoors, especially at a nail salon. "Nail salons present somewhat of a specific challenge because of the necessary relatively close proximity between the manicurist and the client," she says. "If you are vaccinated, you can certainly feel protected, but as always there is no way of knowing for certain whether employees in such close proximity are vaccinated as well."
The tricky thing is that all of this risk calculus will keep changing as more Americans get vaccinated and levels of the virus fluctuate. And every situation presents its own unique set of variables. So Mary Jean, you can feel comfortable getting that manicure at long last, but it's best if you bring your mask.
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. Write to us at CovidQs@bloomberg.net—Kristen V. Brown | 
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