The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 no longer need to wear masks or physically distance, indoors or outdoors in most circumstances, according to two sources familiar with the recommendations.
A person is “fully vaccinated” two weeks after their last dose of the vaccine. Those two weeks give the immune system enough time to develop antibodies against the virus. According to the CDC, more than 35 percent of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, and about 30 percent of the Tennessee population has been fully vaccinated.
The new recommendation comes more than a year after the CDC first suggested that Americans should wear masks to protect against spreading or catching the coronavirus.
However, people who have compromised immune systems, should talk to their doctors about continuing wearing their masks. Fully vaccinated people may still be asked to wear masks in certain locations, such as in hospitals or other health care settings.
Even though the vaccines work well, they are not perfect, and breakthrough infections can occur. Of the more than 117 million people in the U.S. who have been fully vaccinated, 9,245 later ted positive for Covid-19. Those illnesses have generally been mild.
