Fully vaccinated people can have indoor gatherings without masks – CDC [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its new guidelines that fully vaccinated individuals can safely gather indoors without masks.
• Vaccinated people must wait for two weeks after the final dose before they can be tagged as “fully vaccinated.”
• Health experts warn the public to still be cautious as only 9% of the population has been vaccinated.

Vaccinated people might just be returning back to the old normal.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new guidelines suggesting that fully vaccinated people can safely gather indoors without wearing any mask.

The agency defined “fully vaccinated” as people who have been inoculated two weeks after their final dose, which varies depending on the manufacturer. For Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, it would be two weeks after the second of two shots, while for Johnson & Johnson, it means two weeks after the single dose.

“If you and a friend, or you and a family member are both vaccinated, you can have dinner together” without wearing masks or without distancing, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters on Monday.

Vaccinated individuals can also visit, without protections, someone in a single household who is not inoculated. They can also go without any quarantine or test if they come into contact with an infected person.

The CDC director added that vaccinated people have “small risk” to be infected with milder or asymptomatic disease. It is also unlikely for them to transmit the virus to others who haven’t received any vaccine yet.

Walensky further said that social precautions should still be observed as only very few, about 9%, have been vaccinated. Other public health officials shared the same sentiment and warned that the public should not be complacent, especially that some states started to relax restrictions.

“While the new guidance is a positive step, many more people need to be fully vaccinated before everyone can stop taking most COVID-19 precautions. It is important that, until then, everyone continues to adhere to important mitigation measures to protect the large number of people who remain unvaccinated,” the CDC director said.

Walensky also highlighted that travel recommendations remain the same, regardless if vaccinated or not. CDC recommends that people should refrain from traveling as it could only bring another surge in cases.

Aiming to increase the population of vaccinated Americans, the US is administering about two million shots a day and working on increasing supplies in the coming months. According to President Joe Biden, there will be enough shots by the end of May for everyone who wants to be inoculated.

Source: The Hill