Covid-19 vaccination privileges: People who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can meet without masks indoors in small groups with others who have been vaccinated as well as with un-vaccinated people who are not at risk. Vaccinated grandparents can also hug grandchildren if they are healthy.
However, fully vaccinated people still need to avoid unnecessary travel and cover their nose and mouth in public. On Monday, the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new guidelines for social contacts. Reuters provided an extensive coverage of briefing.
What are the covid-19 vaccination privileges?
Possibility of family meetings and meetings with friends, even with the un-vaccinated
The CDC announced yesterday that fully vaccinated people can also meet in small groups and without protective masks with unvaccinated people from another household , provided they are not at risk of developing severe COVID-19. Importantly, according to these guidelines, people, e.g. vaccinated grandparents, can finally eat lunch with their children and hug their healthy grandchildren, as long as these people are not in the group of people at risk of severe coronavirus infection.
According to Reuters, the slight lifting of restrictions for the vaccinated does not mean that the government’s concern about stopping the coronavirus epidemic will be reduced. President Joe Biden urged Americans to remain vigilant and continue to follow CDC guidelines to prevent another wave of infection.
Director of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention Rochelle Walensky told reporters it was important to continue to protect those who were not vaccinated. She recalled that these people remain defenseless against the dangerous virus and reminded that there are currently about 60,000 new infections in the United States.
“We are in the midst of a major pandemic and still over 90 percent of our population is not fully vaccinated,” she added. “Therefore, everyone, whether vaccinated or not, should continue to avoid larger gatherings as well as unnecessary travel.”
In the United States, more than 525,000 people have died from COVID-19. Biden, who took office on January 20, encouraged Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days of his presidency. This is a completely different approach to former US President Donald Trump, who downplayed the pandemic and avoided wearing masks. Some states began lifting restrictions on a large scale.
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Many Americans looking to get back to their pre-pandemic lifestyle see vaccination as a way to do so. Businesses, especially in the tourism and hospitality industries, hope to slowly recover from the crisis thanks to the growing number of vaccinated people.
According to Reuters, approximately 30 million people, or 9.2% of the US population, have been fully vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer Inc / BioNTech SE, Moderna Inc and Johnson & Johnson so far. Nearly 18% of the US population, or 58.9 million adults, have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Currently approved COVID-19 vaccines protect people from disease, but not necessarily infection. It is not yet known whether vaccinated people can still transmit the virus, Walensky reminded, calling for continued compliance with the sanitary regime.
The CDC last month announced that U.S. vaccinated people can skip the standard 14-day quarantine after coming into contact with someone with COVID-19, as long as they remain asymptomatic.
Source: Reuters , PolskiObserwator.de, Afronews.de