New CDC guidance for the vaccinated
Hug grandkids, gather indoors without masks, says feds’ report
People who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus can safely gather indoors without wearing masks or social distancing, according to new guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday.
The recommendations allow vaccinated people to come together without face masks or distancing with unvaccinated people from one other household considered at low risk for severe disease, such as children and grandchildren.
Local infectious disease experts applauded the new guidance, saying it will help those who have been vaccinated connect with family and friends after a difficult year. But Bay Area public health officials, who have consistently taken a more cautious approach in dealing with the pandemic, are not rushing to endorse the federal recommendations.
“To date, fewer than one in 10 San Franciscans are fully vaccinated, therefore, we recommend that vaccinated people continue to wear a mask over their nose and mouth when they are in public and to follow the other health precautions when gathering with unvaccinated people, some of whom may be at high risk of serious illness,” a spokesperson for the San Francisco Department of Public Health told The Chronicle.
Other Bay Area public health departments said they will issue their responses to the CDC recommendations later Monday.
“I’m very excited for the social relief it will provide, especially in official settings like medical centers and longterm care facilities,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine and infectious dis
ease at UCSF, who has long advocated that vaccinated people pose little risk to one another. “The effects of loneliness and depression the pandemic has had on older people and health care workers is very real.”
John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley, said the new guidelines will provide more impetus for people to get vaccinated when their turn comes up, pushing the nation closer to widespread immunity.
“For me, it means my wife and me, who are fully vaccinated, can be with our son and daughterinlaw inside their home without masks for the first time in a year,” he said.
But Swartzberg cautioned that people should not take the limited guidance as a license to relax the safety measures that have helped prevent people from getting infected and infecting others.
It is still unknown whether a vaccinated person can carry the virus, potentially infecting other people despite not feeling sick.
Rochelle Walensky, the head of the CDC, said at a White House briefing Monday that fully vaccinated people should continue to wear wellfitted masks and socially distance when they are out in public and avoid medium and largesize gatherings.
The CDC considers individuals fully immunized two weeks after receiving their second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID19 vaccines, or two weeks after the singleshot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Peter ChinHong, an infectious disease expert at UCSF, said the recommendations are unexpectedly progressive.
“They could have been wishywashy and said, ‘Everybody wears masks all the time.’ But they put the nickel down,” he said. “They were bold, brave and appropriate. It does send a positive message to people as vaccinations are rolling out.”
The guidance comes as California state officials on Friday announced that sports games, live performances and theme parks could allow a limited number of people starting in April due to a decline in cases and hospitalizations and the availability of vaccines.
Walensky said the CDC will continue to finetune its recommendations for fully vaccinated people in the coming weeks. More activities could be approved for vaccinated individuals once coronavirus caseloads and deaths decline. She said the guidance issued Monday was only a “first step” toward returning to normalcy.
The CDC advised that vaccinated people get tested if they develop symptoms related to COVID19 but can skip quarantine and testing if they are exposed but are asymptomatic. It is still unknown how long vaccines are effective or how much vaccines protect against emerging COVID variants, the agency said.
As of Monday, more than 60 million people in the U.S. had received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and more than 31 million people — 9.4% of the total population — had been fully vaccinated, according to data collected by the CDC.
The agency did not change its recommendations on travel, which discourage unnecessary travel and call for getting tested within a few days of the trip.
Experts anticipate that the next round of recommendations from the agency could have wider implications for travel, returning to offices, school, or even attending baseball games and rock concerts.
“It will be interesting to see how that plays out as more and more people get vaccinated,” said ChinHong. “Are there going to be activities in society that vaccinated people will have access to that nonvaccinated people will not? The thorny issue is immunity passports.”
For some companies that continued inperson work throughout the pandemic, the guidance is a hopeful sign but not a reason to rush their entire workforce back to the office.
“Our current philosophy is that we’ll maintain social distancing and maskwearing for the immediate future,” said Brad Minnis, a vice president at Juniper Networks in Sunnyvale.
Minnis said a small percentage of the company’s employees have worked in its labs throughout the pandemic. That number could increase as more vaccines become available, he said.
For now, the company plans to keep mask wearing and social distancing rules in place until at least June.
Gandhi said she is hopeful that people will take the new set of recommendations as signs of hope and not a green light to abandon all safety protocols.
“Giving people relief is not saying the pandemic is over,” she said. “I don’t think the general population is denying COVID exists. They are looking for pinpricks of light as we go towards the ultimate light, which is mass vaccination and immunity.”