People vaccinated against COVID-19 can meet together in small groups indoors without wearing a mask and without respecting physical distancing, US health officials said on Monday.
• Read also: All the developments of the pandemic
They can also meet without a mask with unvaccinated people from only one other household at a time, if they do not have risk factors for COVID-19, Rochelle Walensky told a press conference. , the director of the American Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC).
On the other hand, vaccinated people meeting with unvaccinated people from several different households at the same time will have to continue to wear a mask and respect physical distancing.
They must also continue to follow these measures in public spaces, avoid travel and large gatherings, according to the recommendations of the CDC, the main federal public health agency in the country.
These precautions are taken because “there is always a small risk that vaccinated people could be infected with mild forms of COVID-19, or without showing symptoms, and potentially transmit it to others”, explained Rochelle Walensky, noting that scientific research was continuing in this area.
A vaccinated person is someone who waited two weeks after receiving the two doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, she said. So far only these three vaccines have been authorized in emergency in the United States.
Grandparents’ visit
“If grandparents have been vaccinated, they can visit their daughter and her family, even if they have not been vaccinated”, as long as they do not have risk factors that make them more likely to have severe forms of COVID-19, Walensky said.
These risk factors are, for example, obesity, heart disease or diabetes.
People who have been vaccinated also no longer need to self-quarantine or get tested if they don’t show symptoms after coming into contact with someone with COVID-19.
These recommendations were eagerly awaited, but the mandatory restrictive measures are largely taken at the local level in the United States. Several states have recently lifted mask-wearing obligations, based on the drop in the number of new daily cases and hospitalizations compared to a few weeks ago.
Currently, 9.2% of the US population is “fully vaccinated,” according to the CDC.
More than 90 million injections have been performed in the country.
And the vaccination campaign continues to grow: around 2.2 million people have been bitten per day on average over the past week, with a record 2.9 million injections in a single day on Saturday, said Andy Slavitt, White House adviser on the fight against the coronavirus, during the same press briefing.
SEE ALSO
Here are the COVID-19 vaccines and their characteristics