Fully vaccinated people can safely participate in outdoor activities without masks, but they should continue to wear face masks in public places where they are required, according to U.S. health regulators and President Joe Biden Tuesday.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of all adults in the U.S. have already received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
"Today is another day we can take a step back to the normalcy of before," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said.
The CDC continues to suggest masking for crowded outdoor activities such as parades and sporting events, as well as indoor trips to hair salons, shopping malls, movie theaters and places of worship.
"Generally, for vaccinated people, outdoor activities without a mask are safe," Walensky said. She did, however, caution against gathering in larger venues, such as outdoor concert halls, where there is a "decreased ability to maintain physical distance and where many unvaccinated people may also be present."
The CDC, according to Walensky, would "continue to recommend this until widespread vaccination is achieved."
President Biden's chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, previewed the new guidelines on Monday, telling a virtual event organized by the Harvard Chan School of Public Health that "the risk of infection outside is really minimum, and if you're vaccinated, it's even less."
The new, more relaxed masking rules seem to be meant as an enticement to the millions of Americans who are eligible for a vaccine but have not yet been inoculated for one reason or another.
While approximately 95 million people in the U.S. have been inoculated, this is much too small a proportion of the population to prevent the coronavirus from spreading. Every day, approximately 50,000 new coronavirus cases are reported in the country.
Last week, Israel, the world's most vaccinated country, revoked its outdoor mask mandate. With about 81% of people or residents over the age of 16 - the age group eligible for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Israel - having received both doses, contagion and hospitalizations are significantly lower.
Individuals are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, or two weeks after receiving the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
