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As vaccination rates pick up across the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday issued its much-anticipated guidelines for the more than 30 million people now fully-vaccinated for COVID-19. Those recommendations include how vaccinated people can gather with those who have yet to receive the COVID vaccine and mask-wearing.
Perhaps most notably, the new guidelines greenlight fully-vaccinated people gathering in private, small scenarios where everyone is fully-vaccinated without masks or social distancing. The CDC defines fully-vaccinated people as those who are two weeks out of their second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines and two weeks out of receiving the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Fully-vaccinated people are also safe to interact with those who are not vaccinated, but those gatherings are limited to one household where members do not belong to a high-risk COVID category. “Here’s an example,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a White House virtual event announcing the guidelines. “If grandparents have been vaccinated, they can visit their daughter and her family, even if they have not been vaccinated, so long as the daughter and her family are not at risk for severe disease.”
Fully-vaccinated people are also okay to refrain from quarantine measures if exposed to a potential outbreak, as long as they do not exhibit symptoms. Public mask-wearing and keeping physical distance in large gatherings should still be observed.
