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Fully-vaccinated Americans can finally stop wearing their masks almost anywhere – indoors or outdoors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Thursday.
Those who have finished their shot regimen can now go out to eat, see a movie, shake hands and give hugs at will, according to the new guidance.
The new guidance still calls for wearing masks in crowded indoor settings like buses, planes, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters, but could ease restrictions for reopening workplaces and schools. People who are fully vaccinated but immunocompromised people may still be advised by their doctors to keep masking.
Even President Biden – along with several lawmakers meeting him to discuss infrastructure in the Oval Office – stripped off his mask upon the news, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a Democrat from New York, told the Guardian.
However, the CDC’s recommendation is just that – an unenforceable recommendation. States, cities and businesses can still require masks. The office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said its health department is reviewing the new guidelines, but has not issued an official update.
Equinox Gym notified members Thursday afternoon that masks are still required while working out at its New York gyms.
The White House officially lifted its mandate requiring masks on the premise, allowing staffers and journalists on Thursday to uncover their faces on for the first time since Biden took office.
‘Today is a great day for America,’ Biden said in an afternoon press conference, as he declared the new guidance a ‘great milestone.’
The ability for vaccinated Americans to unmask comes as a product of enough people being vaccinated to start to peel back other measures to slow the spread of COVID-19.
More than a third of the U.S. population – and 45 percent of adults – are now fully vaccinated, and nearly 60 percent of adults have had at least a first shot. As vaccination has become widespread, scientists in the U.S. – and especially in Israel – have had a chance to see real-world proof that the shots prevent almost all transmission.
What’s more, as vaccination rates have risen, President Biden noted that average daily COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have fallen to their lowest level since April 2020 – just after the pandemic took hold in the U.S. – falling to 586 a day, according to CDC data.
And cases are nearing pandemic-lows too. The seven-day rolling average of new infections is down to 36,832 – the lowest it’s been since the July lull between surges.
‘Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in activities indoors or outdoors, large or small, without physical distancing,’ announced CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky during a Friday White House press briefing, she said, praising the rapid vaccination effort for allowing masks to come off, and Covid cases to stay down.
IN THE GREEN: CDC’s updated infographics shows that fully vaccinated Americans can safely do just about anything without wearing a mask
‘If you are fully vaccinated you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic. We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some semblance of normalcy.
‘This is an exciting and powerful moment.’
CDC’s announcement comes as the agency and the Biden administration have faced pressure to ease restrictions on fully vaccinated people – people who are two weeks past their last required COVID-19 vaccine dose – in part to highlight the benefits of getting the shot.
With the guidelines relaxed, politicians and public figures on both sides of the aisle shifted to celebrating on Thursday afternoon.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared himself ‘free at last’ as he left the Senate for the week, sans mask.
First lady Dr Jill Biden exited her plane maskless upon landing in West Virginia to visit a vaccination clinic for students, after departing Washington, D.C. in a pink face covering. Actress Jennifer Garner, who is touring with the first lady, whipped off her own face covering when she greeted a maskless Biden on the tarmac.
In a seemingly prescient moment, Speaker Nancy Pelosi removed her mask in public for the first time in months on earlier Thursday during her weekly Capitol Hill press conference.
She took off her face covering once she got to the podium, and cited new House rules that require all members to wear masks on the floor – unless they are speaking.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi took off her mask in public for the first time in months during her Thursday press conference, citing new House Rules requiring members to wear masks on the floor unless they are speaking (left). The CDC is expected to update its guidelines for the public to say that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks indoors – except in crowded settings like planes and buses. The CDC is expected to say on Thursday that people can stop wearing masks indoors. It comes after Republican lawmakers blasted CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky (right) over the agency’s mask guidelines on Tuesday
First lady Jill Biden exited her plane maskless upon landing in West Virginia to visit a vaccination clinic for students, after departing Washington, D.C. in a pink face covering. Actress Jennifer Garner, who is touring with the first lady, whipped off her own face covering when she greeted a maskless Biden on the tarmac
The CDC’s new guidance also comes two weeks after the agency recommended that fully vaccinated people continue to wear masks indoors in all settings and outdoors in large crowds – advice that White House adviser Dr Anthony Fauci only just publicly endorsed earlier on Thursday.
In that update, the CDC also exaggerated the risk of Covid transmission outdoors as accounting for less than 10 percent of cases when the figure is likely less than one percent, experts say.
That’s sown distrust and confusion, fueling claims that the CDC has been keeping mask guidelines in places longer than it needs to.
Things came to a head earlier this week, as Republican lawmakers grilled CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky over masking guidelines, claiming that the agency had let them drag on too long.
To-date, more than 117 million Americans are fully vaccinated, accounting for just over a third of the U.S. population, and 45 percent of adults have had at least one dose. The CDC also recommended on Wednesday that eligibility to get Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine be expanded to children as young as 12.
Real-world data, mostly gathered in hospitals where CDC is expected to still advise masking – suggests that vaccination cuts the risk of infection by some 97 percent among staff who primarily interacted indoors. But that data was gathered while guidelines recommended masks were still in place, so how the virus could spread among vaccinated, unmasked people indoors remains unknown.
The chance to ditch the mask ‘could only happen because of the work of so many who made sure we had the rapid administration of three safe, effective vaccines,’ said Dr Walensky.
‘It could also only happen because we had an adequate supply of those vaccines for everyone 12 years and older in this country.’
Her remarks come less than 24 hours after the CDC recommended that states start giving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to children as young as 12. The FDA on Monday expanded emergency use authorization for the shot to children between 12 and 15 (it was previously available to those 16 and older).
Health officials have welcomed the expansion, but critics have noted that the U.S. is vaccinating children against a virus that is only fatal to less than one percent of kids who get it before sharing vaccines with poorer nations where more at-risk adults and health care workers remain unvaccinated, such as India.
Despite her optimism and enthusiasm for the speed of the U.S. vaccine rollout, Dr Walensky cautioned that there is not guarantee that the U.S. is fully past the crisis.
‘This past year has shown us that this virus can be unpredictable, so if things get worse, there is always a chance we may need to make changes to these recommendations, but we know that the more people are vaccinated, the less cases we will have and the less chance of a new spike or additional variants emerging.’
Republican lawmakers on Tuesday charged that health guidelines have unnecessarily remained in place even as more and more Americans get vaccinated.
‘I always considered the CDC to be the gold standard. I don’t anymore,’ Maine Senator Susan Collins said during a Capitol Hill hearing on the pandemic response Tuesday.
Collins, who was reelected to her fifth term in November, told Walensky that she ‘used to have the utmost respect for the guidance from the CDC’ but now feels it has issued ‘conflicting, confusing guidance’ that contradicts health officials.
‘I used to have the utmost respect for the guidance from the CDC. I always considered the CDC to be the gold standard. I don’t anymore,’ she lectured the agency head.
She accused the agency – whose leaders repeatedly said they operate based on the science and the available data – of ‘exaggerating’ the risk of transmission of COVID-19.
‘So, here we have unnecessary barriers to reopening schools, exaggerating the risks of outdoor transmission, and unworkable restrictions on summer camps. Why does this matter?’ Collins continued. ‘It matters because it undermines public confidence in your recommendation, in the recommendations that do make sense, in the recommendations that Americans should be following.’
The attack by Collins, an influential senator who sometimes cooperates with Democrats, came as her state’s Democratic governor joined a zoom call with President Joe Biden to talk about vaccine distribution and the pandemic.
At one point, Maine Gov. Janet Mills joked about people in her state responded to the CDC’s initially recommended 6-foot social distancing guidance. ‘Some people asked, why so close?’ she quipped.
Dr Anthony Fauci had only publicly endorsed the previous guidelines, advising fully vaccinated Americans they could unmask outdoors except in crowded places, for the first time earlier on Thursday
The updated guidance is expected to still recommend that fully vaccinated Americans wear masks in certain crowded settings, like airplanes (pictured, file) and buses. The federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) renewed its mask requirement for all public mass transit – including airplanes and train stations – on April 30
Walensky – who in March warned about a feeling of ‘impending doom’ as U.S. infections rose – spoke with optimism about vaccines approved for young people aged 12-15 – even appearing to suggest they lobby their parents for the shot.
She made the statement when asked about government approval to extend the emergency use authorization for Pfizer for children aged 12-15.
‘I recognize some parents want to see how it goes, but I am encouraging all children to be vaccinated,’ she said during the hearing. ‘And I am also encouraging children to ask for the vaccine.’
‘I have a 16-year-old and I continue he wanted to get the vaccine. He wants his life back,’ she said.
Officials are eyeing young people as a cohort that can help boost the nation’s overall vaccine rates – with a substantial number of adults still saying they aren’t sure they want to get the shots.
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