Your questions, answered“Two families are planning an outdoor gathering. Adults are vaccinated. Except for a one-year-old who is home and doesn't mask, the older kids attend different day-cares, where they mask. Should the kids wear masks (with the exception of the one-year-old) at an outdoor gathering of the two families? Should the adults?” — Erin in the District of Columbia It's easy to see the appeal of gathering outside: Viral transmission is generally poor in the outdoors, more and more people are vaccinated, and the spring season promises sunny days ahead. You may be wondering, then, whether it makes sense to discard your masks. Today's answer is adapted from reporter Allyson Chiu's recent article on masking. She writes: Decisions to spend time outdoors barefaced largely depend on personal risk assessments involving a variety of virus-related factors. What is your vaccination status? How many other people could you be interacting with? Do you know their vaccination status? How much prolonged close contact could you have with them? Are you, or is anyone in your household, at increased risk for becoming severely ill from covid-19? There isn't one rule for answering those questions. But there are guiding principles that can help. If you can’t maintain distance and there are a lot of people around who might not be vaccinated or might not be comfortable if others are unmasked, "then I think those are good cues to be wearing a mask,” Krystal Pollitt, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, told The Post. You also should be mindful of the public health guidance on masking in your area. Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech who studies airborne virus transmission, suggests keeping three factors in mind: whether you’re outdoors, whether you’re at a safe distance from other people and whether everyone is wearing masks. Ideally, Marr says, you should try to be in situations where you can meet two out of three of those conditions, particularly if you or people you’re interacting with outside your household aren’t vaccinated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that it is low risk for a vaccinated person to spend time indoors and unmasked with unvaccinated people from a single household who aren’t vulnerable to severe cases of covid. That guidance would also apply if the same gathering took place outside. Relaxed masking recommendations, however, do not apply in close-contact situations involving unvaccinated young children from different households, experts say. For now, as vaccine trials are ongoing, children should keep their masks on outdoors unless they can maintain distance or make sure their encounters with others are brief, Marr says. | 
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