Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease doctor said "within days" the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be coming out with new safety guidance for individuals who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
"I'm sure that this is going to be contained in the CDC guidelines, at least, if you have two people in a family unit in a home or friends who are vaccinated...you can pull back on some of the public health guidelines like you don't have to wear a mask...and you don't have to worry about physical distancing," Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on MSNBC's The Cross Connection With Tiffany Cross Saturday morning.
Dr. Anthony Fauci addresses the concern about equal access to #COVID vaccines telling @TiffanyDCross, "The president has made it very clear that we are going to have equity." #CrossConnection pic.twitter.com/9ht8CjDgI6
— The Cross Connection with Tiffany Cross (@CrossConnection) March 6, 2021
Fauci told host Tiffany Cross that it will be okay to relax indoor COVID-19 restrictions when all people present at a gathering are fully vaccinated. He exemplified that if a group of friends who have all received full doses want to gather for an indoor dinner, it would be safe for them not to social distance or wear masks.
About 17 percent of the U.S. population now has at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and nearly 10 percent have received full vaccinations, according to NPR's vaccination tracker. The White House COVID-19 response team said at a press conference Friday that nearly 55 percent of people aged 65 or older have receive at least one shot.
Now that more Americans have received vaccines, pressure on the CDC has increased to provide safety guidance for individuals who are inoculated and want to return to pre-pandemic lifestyles.
"The CDC is working to ensure that the communications we release on this guidance are clear," said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky on Friday. "We are making sure, and taking the time, to get this right."
She added: "I know the idea of relaxing mask wearing and getting back to everyday activities is appealing. But we're not there yet."
With the arrival of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is easier to administer and store, normal life may be a vision in sight. But some experts worry about relaxing safety guidelines because of the rapid spread of COVID-19 variants.
When Cross asked Fauci about the variants, the doctor said experts are "keeping an eye out" regarding relaxing restrictions because of deadlier mutants that are now spreading in the U.S.
"Even when it diminishes somewhat the effect of a vaccine, the vaccines that we're using certainly still have some effect of protecting you certainly against severe disease," Fauci said. "We're going to be doing things like boosting people if we need to. We don't know yet if we need to, and [we're] even making vaccines just in case that are directed specifically against the variant."
Newsweek has reached out to the CDC for comment on the upcoming guidelines.
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