CDC Announces New Guidelines for Vaccinated Americans

The CDC announced March 8, 2021 new guidelines allowing Americans who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to safely resume some social activities. The guidelines are based on the latest science and include:

• Visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or staying 6 feet apart
• Visit with unvaccinated people from one other household indoors without wearing masks or staying 6 feet apart if everyone in the other household is at low risk for severe disease
• Refrain from quarantine and testing if they do not have symptoms of COVID-19 after contact with someone who has COVID-19

The CDC defines full vaccination as two weeks after the last required dose of a vaccine. Recommendations will be updated as more people are vaccinated, rates of COVID-19 in the community change, and additional scientific evidence becomes available, according to the press release.

"We know that people want to get vaccinated so they can get back to doing the things they enjoy with the people they love," said CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH in a CDC press release. "There are some activities that fully vaccinated people can begin to resume now in their own homes. Everyone even those who are vaccinated should continue with all mitigation strategies when in public settings. As the science evolves and more people get vaccinated, we will continue to provide more guidance to help fully vaccinated people safely resume more activities."

"We continue to receive sustainable positive news around the pandemic and the latest guidelines by the CDC again provide tremendous hope for our path forward," said ALHI President & CEO Michael Dominguez. "Knowing that in small groups fully vaccinated Americans are not advised to wear mask nor social distance is a positive development.  The optimism here is that we can resume some normalcy when reaching herd immunity."