With more and more people getting vaccinated for COVID-19 in the United States, the Center for Disease Control has come out with guidelines for those who have been fully vaccinated. 

According to the CDC website, once you have been fully vaccinated, you should still take precautions in public places by following social distancing guidelines such as wearing a mask, staying six feet apart from others, and avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces. The CDC also outlined what is considered as fully vaccinated. This includes:

• A person having gotten their second dose in a two-dose series (like Pfizer or Moderna vaccines), or

• 2 weeks after a single-dose vaccine (like Johnson and Johnson’s Janssen vaccine) 

So what can someone who has been fully vaccinated now do? Well, you can:

• “Gather indoors with other fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask.”

• “Gather indoors with unvaccinated people from one other household without masks, unless any of those people or anyone they live with has an increased risk for contracting COVID-19” 

What do we know about the COVID-19 vaccines? 

COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing the COVID-19 disease, and the prevention steps (wearing masks, staying six feet apart, and not gathering in crowds) are still important in stopping the spread of COVID-19. 

What don’t we know?

The CDC is still gathering information about how effective the vaccines are against variants of the virus, and how well the vaccines are at keeping people from spreading the disease.

Those who are fully vaccinated are also allowed to not quarantine or get tested if they are exposed to someone with COVID-19, but if they begin to develop symptoms then quarantining and testing are required. 

According to the CDC, guidelines surrounding travel have not been updated for people who have been fully vaccinated.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky “stressed that everyone should continue to avoid nonessential trips, regardless of vaccination status,” according to NPR. Previous spikes in cases after travel and the emergence of variants from international locations were cited as reasons for the CDC not updating travel guidelines. 

According to NPR, “The Biden administration is working to scale up vaccine manufacturing and distribution and announced last week that the country will have enough supply for every adult by the end of May.” 

White House senior advisor, Andy Slavitt, said that a record 2.9 million doses were administered Saturday, March 6. 

More than 113 million doses have been administered since Dec. 14, with 22.2 percent of the U.S. population receiving at least one dose according to data collected by the CDC. The current average amount of shots administered per day in the United States is around 2.4 million. 

In Massachusetts, about 13.2 percent of people have been fully vaccinated, and about 25.5 percent of people have received at least one dose. Massachusetts is currently in Phase One and the first part of Phase Two in their vaccine eligibility plan. Those eligible to receive the vaccine are: 

• People 75 and older

• People aged 65-74

• People with two or more certain medical conditions

• Low income and affordable senior housing residents and staff

• Health care workers

• Long term care settings 

• First responders

• Congregate care settings

• Educators, child care workers, and school staff

Those in the second half of Phase Two and Phase Three include: 

• Those age 55 and older (who are eligible April 5)

• Those age 60 and older (who are eligible March 22)

• People with one certain medical condition (who are eligible April 5)

• Certain workers (who are eligible March 22)

• Individuals 16 and older (who are eligible April 19)

“Certain workers” are those who work in restaurants or cafes; food, meatpacking, beverage, agriculture, consumer goods, retail, or food service workers; grocery and convenience store workers; food pantry workers or volunteers; medical supply chain workers; vaccine development workers; transit workers; public works workers; sanitation workers; public health workers; court system workers; and funeral directors and funeral workers. 

For more information about the COVID-19 vaccines or to check your eligibility for the vaccine please visit:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html 
https://www.mass.gov/covid-19-vaccine