CDC Announces: Fully Vaccinated People Can Ditch Masks Indoors

    The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued new guidance that Americans no longer have to wear masks indoors or physically distance in most circumstances.

    Although masks are still required on trains, planes, and buses, the moment has come for those who are fully vaccinated to stop wearing masks indoors, said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH.

   The CDC, which will review, in the coming days, its guidance on whether travellers, campers, and schoolchildren should continue to mask, has said for now: they should continue to wear their masks.

    Earlier today, on CBS, Anthony Fauci, MD, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 no longer have to wear masks outside.

    “We’ve got to make that transition,” Dr. Fauci said. “If you are vaccinated, you don’t have to wear a mask outside. It would be a very unusual situation, if you were going into a completely crowded situation where people are essentially falling all over each other, then you wear a mask. But any other time, if you’re vaccinated and you’re outside, put aside your mask. You don’t have to wear it.” 

     “When Dr. Fauci said, 'Put the mask aside,' that means a lot,” said Elizabeth Cohen, CNN's senior medical correspondent. “I am here in New York City watching people walk around wearing masks, and I am thinking, ‘Why are people doing this? These people are probably vaccinated. If you are vaccinated, you are protected to such a large degree that if you are outdoors, you do not have to wear a mask, unless, as Dr. Fauci put it, you are,” in a very crowded space.

 (Kevin P. Coughlin / Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)