There’s some good news today for anyone who has received both doses of the coronavirus vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released guidelines on what activities those who have been fully vaccinated can safely engage in.
According to NBC News, the CDC has said that after two weeks, people who have been fully vaccinated can safely hold small gatherings with no masks or distancing. These guidelines hold true whether the people in the gathering have been fully vaccinated or haven’t. “As more Americans are vaccinated, a growing body of evidence now tells us that there are some activities fully vaccinated people can do,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House Covid-19 briefing Monday.
“Fully vaccinated grandparents can visit indoors with their unvaccinated healthy daughter and her healthy children without wearing masks or physical distancing, provided none of the unvaccinated family members are at risk of severe COVID-19,” the CDC wrote in a statement regarding the guidelines.
This is the first step the agency has taken towards providing guidance on how we can slowly get back to, you know, actually seeing one another.
Don’t start tearing off those masks and wilding out just yet, though. There are still plenty of folks who haven’t been vaccinated, and while the vaccine is a strong preventative measure, it isn’t a surefire cure. The CDC still recommends being vigilant about washing your hands, wearing your mask, and social distancing when going out in public spaces, even if you’ve been fully vaccinated.
“I want to stress that we continue to have high levels of virus around the country, and more readily transmissible variants have now been confirmed in nearly every state,” Walensky said. “While we work to quickly vaccinate people more and more each day, we have to see this through.”
So far, approximately 59 million people have received their first dose, and another 30 million have received both doses, meaning that just under 10 percent of the American population has been vaccinated. That means we still have quite a way to go before we can start watching John Cena throwing cars at Vin Diesel in a packed theater.
President Joe Biden has previously said that there should be enough vaccines for every American by May. So, barring some states deciding to, I don’t know, prematurely end mask mandates and allow businesses to operate at full capacity, we should hopefully be looking at a far less disease-ridden summer than the last one.
Personally, I’m just hoping I can get a vaccination by April, because goddammit, I’m not trying to watch WrestleMania alone this year.