Monday came with some welcome news for Americans who have been cooped up for the past year: If you’ve received a full course of COVID vaccination, you can begin resuming certain in-person activities, per new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The looming question is whether people will take that regulatory inch and stretch into a pandemic-extending mile.
“Today’s action represents an important first step. It is not our final destination,” said CDC director Rochelle Walensky in a White House briefing on Monday.
As of March 8, the seven-day rolling average for administered COVID vaccines (the actual shots in arms) stood at about 2.2 million per day as opposed to about 900,000 per day toward the end of January. Walensky said that 59 million people have received at least one dose of a coronavirus shot (the Pfizer and Moderna ones both require two, and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires one) and 31 million people have been fully vaccinated. One critical note? “Fully vaccinated” doesn’t mean you’ve simply received a full course of a vaccine. After your final dose, it still takes two weeks for your immune system to build up its defenses against the pathogen.
But with warmer weather fast approaching and the immunization campaign ramping up, the CDC decided it was time to offer up some clarity on what the vaccinated can responsibly do. Under the new guidance, experts from the organization conclude that it’s relatively safe for people who have been fully vaccinated to congregate, in small groups, indoors without having to wear a mask or socially distance.
It also finds that vaccinated people can safely congregate without masks indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household (again, in small groups) as long as the unvaccinated individuals aren’t at high risk for COVID. After all, even vaccinated people may be able to pass along the virus, although it’s probably less likely. And if you’re in the clear, exposure to a known COVID patient doesn’t necessitate a quarantine as long as you’re asymptomatic.
The full guidance does still urge caution in public settings and with strangers, emphasizing that you should still wear masks and socially distance when you don’t know someone’s vaccination status or risk for contracting COVID. It also strongly discourages congregating with people in medium-size or large group settings.
The guidance is prudent and based on science, according to Iahn Gonsenhauser, chief quality and patient safety officer, assistant professor, and a lead epidemiologist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. What he worries about is the discipline that will be required by the public.
“My concern is that people either misunderstand, misread, or just choose to interpret that if we can make these changes, then we can make other changes as well,” he says. “It’s sometimes difficult for the public to tease out the specific qualifiers with these guidelines and they have a tendency to, you know, take a mile rather than an inch,” noting that’s precisely what happened when the initial COVID lockdowns were eased last year.
Gonsenhauser does believe that most epidemiologists would concur that the highly effective Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines necessitate some loosening of the guidelines and clear communication from the CDC. Ironically, the latter part will be critical in making sure people don’t take things too far and host massive in-person parties or abandon masks. But how do you do that?
“That’s a great question. And I wish I had the answer to that—I’d probably be famous right now,” he says.
“I think that we have to continue targeted and well-crafted messaging that really speaks to people’s specific reservations, either about precautions, or about continuing mitigation efforts, or about vaccination. I think local community leaders really being responsible and looking out for their constituents—I think that’s what it’s going to take.”