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CDC guidance offers new hope for fully vaccinated people

Those who are fully vaccinated can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing, according to long-awaited CDC guidance.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — In long awaited guidance released Monday, the CDC says people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can safely visit with other vaccinated people and small groups of unvaccinated people in some circumstances, but there are still important safety precautions needed.

The guidance is designed to address a growing demand, as more adults have been getting vaccinated and wondering if it gives them greater freedom to visit family members, travel, or do other things like they did before the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world last year.

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Fully vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing, according to long-awaited guidance from federal health officials.

The recommendations also say that vaccinated people can come together in the same way with people considered at low-risk for severe disease, such as in the case of vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy children and grandchildren.

One Midlands woman, Carolyn Matthews, is embracing vaccinated life after getting her second dose earlier last month. "Since getting the vaccine, I feel like I am free again," Matthews said.

Active in her church and Rotary, the active mother and grandmother says, "We went out for dinner last Thursday night with two couples, neither of whom who had been out other than to pick up take out food in a year ... I also took a friend who's 88-years-old, who's not been inside a restaurant, I took her to lunch last week."

Credit: Carolyn Matthews

She also says she's enjoying time with her daughter and her granddaughters. "Yesterday I went unmasked to my granddaughter's soccer match."

Carolyn says mentally, a weight has lifted off her shoulders. "That subliminal anxiety that's been present, is gone."

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The new CDC guidance says fully vaccinated people can visit other vaccinated people indoors without masks or physical distancing, plus visit indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without masks or physical distancing, if the unvaccinated people are at low risk for severe disease.

Infectious disease specialist, Dr. Helmut Albrecht, says precautions are still needed. "You don't know who you run into. Don't take unnecessary risks, maybe not for yourself but for others," Albrecht said, adding, "If you have an exposure after being vaccinated you do not have to be in quarantine for 14 days." 

According to the CDC, people who are fully vaccinated are those who are two weeks past their second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines or two weeks past a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 

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"The best protection that the vaccine seems to offer is actually not from infection but from very severe disease, hospitalizations' and death," Albrecht said. 

In fact, Albrecht says it's possible to be infected even with the vaccine. "I don't think we are quite there where you can do everything what you did prior to COVID."

The CDC says those who are fully vaccinated still need to take precautions. They urge people to wear a mask, practice social distancing, avoid crowds and wash your hands frequently.

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