NEW YORK (AP) – Under long-awaited guidelines from federal health officials, fully vaccinated Americans can get together with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or taking social distance.
The recommendations also state that vaccinated people can get together in the same way – in one household – with people at low risk of serious illness, as in the case of vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy children and grandchildren.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the guidance Monday.
The guidance is designed to meet growing demand as more adults have been vaccinated and wonder if it gives them more freedom to visit relatives, travel, or do other things like before the COVID-19 pandemic. swept the world last year.
“With more and more people getting vaccinated every day, we’re starting to turn a corner,” said CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
At a press conference on Monday, she called the guidance a “first step” to restore normalcy in the way people come together. She said more activities would be good for vaccinated individuals once the number of cases and deaths decreases, more Americans are vaccinated, and as more science emerges about the ability of those vaccinated to get and spread the virus.
The CDC continues to recommend that fully vaccinated people still wear properly fitting masks, avoid large gatherings and distance yourself physically from others when they are in public. The CDC also recommended that vaccinated people get tested if they develop symptoms that could be related to COVID-19.
Officials say a person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the last required dose of vaccine. According to the CDC, about 31 million Americans – or only about 9% of the U.S. population – have been fully vaccinated with a federally authorized COVID-19 vaccine so far.
Authorized vaccine doses first became available in December, and they were products requiring two doses weeks apart. But since January, a small but growing number of Americans have been fully vaccinated and are asking questions like, should I still wear a mask? Can I go to a bar now? Can I finally see my grandchildren?
The guidance was “welcome news to a country that is understandably tired of the pandemic and eager to return to normal activities safely,” said Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the CDC.
“I hope this new directive provides the momentum for everyone to get vaccinated when they can and gives states the patience to follow the public health roadmap needed to safely reopen their economies and communities,” Besser said in a statement .
But Dr. Leana Wen called the accompaniment “way too careful”.
The CDC has not changed its travel recommendations, which discourages unnecessary travel and requires testing within a few days of the trip. That can seem confusing to vaccinated people who want to visit relatives across the country or abroad.
The new guidelines also say nothing about going to restaurants or other places, although governors are lifting restrictions on businesses, said Wen, an emergency physician and professor of public health at George Washington University who was previously Baltimore’s health commissioner.
“The CDC misses an important opportunity to link vaccination status with reopening guidelines. By coming out with such limited guidance, they miss the window to influence state and national policies, ”Wen said in an email.
The CDC guidelines did not speak to people who may have acquired some degree of immunity to coronavirus infection and recovery.
Associated Press reporter Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.
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