Fully Vaccinated Americans Safe from Delta Variant: Do not Need to Mask

     Fully vaccinated people are safe from the current COVID variants and do not need to wear masks, said Rochelle Walensky, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who noted that two-thirds of the adult population in the US have gotten their shots.

     Walensky’s guidance comes a week after the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the rapid spread of a highly transmissible “delta variant” of COVID, which first emerged in India, where the virus surged as a result, has necessitated even vaccinated people to continue to wear masks and to practice social distancing.

     Unvaccinated Americans, however, remain vulnerable every strain of COVID, and particularly now, the new virulent COVID delta strain, which comprises 26% of American COVID cases.

     Health experts warn that the delta variant could be the dominant COVID strain in the US by fall: especially in parts of the country that have low rates of vaccination.

     As a result, leaders in regions that have low vaccination rates and, therefore, more COVID, should be making suggestions about the necessary protocols to reduce spread of the virus, Walensky said.

     The delta variant now comprises 26% of the country’s COVID cases, NBC News reported yesterday.

     While the fully vaccinated adult population is “really quite protected from the variants that we have circulating here in the United States,” Walensky said, “we’ve always said that local policymakers need to make policies for their local environments.”

    Other parts of the world, however, are not as safe from the delta variant of COVID.

     “We know as we look across the globe that less than 15% of the people around the world have been vaccinated, and many of those people have only received one dose of a two-dose vaccine,” Walensky said. “There are places around the world that are surging, and so as the WHO makes those recommendations, they do so in that context.”

    When Walensky was asked whether “the bottom line” of the CDC was: “if you are fully vaccinated, you don’t have to wear a mask?” the CDC director replied, “That is exactly right.

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