Suppose you have been fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus. In that case, it is safe to gather with others unmasked in some situations, but it is still crucial to wear a mask and practice social distancing in public, according to health experts.
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention recently published the guidelines for the newly vaccinated individuals.
According to them, it is okay to remove your mask if you are a fully vaccinated person and are gathering indoors with other, fully vaccinated people, or if you are indoors with unvaccinated members of one other household unless they are among the citizens at high risk of severe COVID-19.
However, the CDC still recommends that vaccinated people wear a mask in public.
You are considered fully vaccinated only two weeks after getting the second two-dose vaccine, like the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. If you were vaccinated with a single-dose vaccine like Johnson & Johnson, you are also considered fully vaccinated after two weeks.
The CDC is on the side of experts who claim that wearing a mask though you are fully vaccinated is necessary and support social distancing and avoiding large gatherings.
It’s not yet clear if COVID vaccines only block symptoms and severe illness or ward vaccinated people from carrying and spreading the virus to healthy individuals.
There was some controversy on the subject – Senator Rand Paul challenged Dr Anthony Fauci over it last week. Dr Gregory Poland, an infectious diseases expert and head of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, stated that there is “no situation in which there is no risk. So [the guidance] recognizes a range of risks.”
