The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 generally no longer need to wear masks or socially distance, including indoors.
The CDC recommendations apply to most indoor and outdoor situations.
“Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a briefing Thursday. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic. We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy.”
More than 45% of the adult population has been fully vaccinated in the United States, according to the CDC.
The new guidance will come with some caveats. Fully vaccinated people may need to continue mitigation measures in certain contexts, such as wearing masks in hospitals. People with compromised immune systems may want to consult with their physicians about continuing mitigation measures.
People traveling in airports and on public transportation such as buses and trains will have to continue wearing masks as well, Walensky said.
INDOOR MASK MANDATES SHOULD BE LIFTED, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER GOTTLIEB SAYS
The CDC first recommended using masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in early April of 2020.
The change in guidance comes as various officials have been recommending changes in mitigation measures. For instance, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed legislation earlier this month that limits the government’s authority to impose mask requirements and restrictions on business operations. The legislation also codified DeSantis’s ban on “vaccine passports” used to document a person’s vaccination status in order to gain entry to events or businesses.
“This past year has shown us that this virus can be unpredictable,” Walensky said. “If things get worse, there is always a chance we may need to make a change to these recommendations, but we know that the more people are vaccinated, the less cases we will have and the less chance of a new spike or additional variants emerging.”
Last week, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration under the Trump administration, said that the U.S. should lift its mask mandates indoors immediately in light of the vaccination campaign.
“I think we can do it right around now,” Gottlieb told CNBC. “I think we should start lifting these restrictions as aggressively as we put them in.”
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Earlier Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said people who are fully vaccinated no longer need to wear masks outside.
