If this new and perplexing reality has added to your stress, you’re not alone. “It has really produced a ton of new anxiety, this process of reopening, re-engaging with social interactions after a year trying to avoid them,” said Malia Jones, a community health scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The vaccines seem to have provided a promising path out of the pandemic, she said, “but also, oh my God, we have to renegotiate every single one of these situations.”
It’s tricky to predict how long the rest of the clinical trials and approval processes will take, but Dr. James Conway, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health who oversees vaccination programs there, said that it’s likely that vaccines will be available for 12- to 15-year-olds this summer, for 5- to 11-year-olds in late 2021, and for babies over 6 months old, toddlers and preschoolers in early 2022.