CDC Releases Guidelines for Fully Vaccinated

By Poynter News

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disappointed a lot of people when it issued its new guidelines on what fully vaccinated people can now do safely. 

The CDC did not change its guidelines on travel, meaning the new guidelines are not a green light for you to climb on a plane or train and live life as you did a year ago. In fact, the CDC says outright that it discourages travel right now.

The guidelines carry a cautious tone even while schools open to in-person learning and states drop mandatory mask laws. The CDC says in most situations, vaccinated people should still wear a “well-fitted” mask and maintain social distance, avoid poorly ventilated spaces, cover coughs and sneezes and wash their hands often. 

The CDC may also have disappointed some people who want to go to athletic events, concerts and other gatherings. The new guidelines say vaccinated people should avoid large and medium gatherings, though the agency did not specify the gathering size with numbers.

The CDC says 59 million people have gotten at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot in the United States and that 9.2% of the population — or 30 million people — are “fully vaccinated.” That means it’s been at least two weeks since they received their second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or two weeks since they received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

With that update, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky says fully vaccinated people can:

Visit other vaccinated people indoors without masks or physical distancing.

Visit indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without masks or physical distancing if the unvaccinated people are at low risk for severe disease. This would apply, for example, to grandparents visiting their low-risk grandchildren. But the key here is to limit exposure to unvaccinated people. The CDC offers an example: 

If fully vaccinated grandparents are visiting with their unvaccinated daughter and her children and the daughter’s unvaccinated neighbors also come over, the visit should then take place outdoors, wearing well-fitted masks, and maintaining physical distance (at least 6 feet). This is due to the risk the two unvaccinated households pose to one another.

The CDC stresses that even when senior citizens are vaccinated, there is a non-zero risk in interacting with unvaccinated people. The CDC says one way to lower the risk is to move gatherings outdoors.

Skip quarantine and testing if exposed to someone who has COVID-19 but is asymptomatic. But it recommends that vaccinated people still monitor for symptoms for 14 days. If symptoms appear, the person should isolate themselves, get tested and speak with their doctor.

And, the CDC’s new guidance says vaccinated people should:

• Wear a mask and keep good physical distance around the unvaccinated who are at increased risk for severe COVID-19, or if the unvaccinated person has a household member who is at higher risk.
• Wear masks and physically distance when visiting unvaccinated people who are from multiple households.
• When fully vaccinated people visit unvaccinated people, there is still some risk to the unvaccinated people. The CDC says fully vaccinated people can visit with unvaccinated people and any unvaccinated people in the household as long as the unvaccinated people are not “at-risk.”

Keep in mind that it is still possible that people who are vaccinated may get infected and we still do not know enough about whether vaccinated people can pass along the virus to others.

As more people get vaccinated, the CDC will update its guidelines, gradually loosening restrictions.