Biden: A great day for America

US president hails easing of mask-wearing guidance for the fully vaccinated

In a major step toward returning to pre-pandemic life, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has eased mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated people, allowing them to stop wearing masks outdoors in crowds and in most indoor settings.

“Today is a great day for America,” President Joe Biden said during a Rose Garden address heralding the new guidance, an event where he and his staff went without masks.

Hours earlier in the Oval Office, where Biden was meeting with vaccinated Republican lawmakers, he led the group in removing their masks when the guidance was announced.

“If you are fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask,” he said, summarising the new guidance and encouraging more Americans to roll up their sleeves.

“Get vaccinated, or wear a mask until you do,” he added.

The guidance still calls for wearing masks in crowded indoor settings like buses, planes, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters, but it will help clear the way for reopening workplaces, schools and other venues – even removing the need for social distancing for those who are fully vaccinated.

“We have all longed for this moment, when we can get back to some sense of normalcy,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said at an earlier White House briefing.

The CDC and the Biden administration have faced pressure to ease restrictions on fully vaccinated people – those who are two weeks past their last required Covid-19 vaccine dose – in part to highlight the benefits of getting the shot.

The country’s aggressive vaccination campaign has paid off. Cases are at their lowest rate since September, deaths are at their lowest point since last April and the test positivity rate is at the lowest point since the pandemic began.

Walensky said the long-awaited change is thanks to the millions of people who have gotten vaccinated and is based on the latest scientific data about how well those shots are working.

“Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities – large or small – without wearing a mask or physically distancing,” Walensky said.

“If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” she added.

The new guidance is likely to open the door to confusion, as there is no surefire way for businesses or others to distinguish between those who have been fully vaccinated and those who are not. — AP