Here's what the CDC's new guidelines mean if you've been vaccinated for COVID
Local // Health
Lisa Gray, Staff writer
March 8, 2021 Updated: March 9, 2021 6:29 a.m.
New CDC guidelines say that fully vaccinated people can feel safe visiting healthy family members -- even without masks.
martinedoucet, Contributor / Getty Images
On Monday morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued recommendations that offer fully vaccinated people more freedom. So if you've been vaccinated, what does that mean for you?
Q: What does "fully" vaccinated mean?
A: It means that it's been at least two weeks since you had your final shot of vaccine. For the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, that means two weeks since the second dose. For the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, that means two weeks since receiving the single dose.
Q: Let's say that I've been fully vaccinated. Can I hang out with a few friends or family who have also been fully vaccinated? Indoors? Without masks or physical distancing?
A: Yes, the CDC says. "Visits or small gatherings" between fully vaccinated people "likely represent minimal risk." So if everyone has been vaccinated, you can be indoors, without masks or physical distancing, at someone's home.
Q: What's "a small gathering"? How many fully vaccinated people can I invite over for dinner?
A: The CDC doesn't specify what "small" means. James McDeavitt, senior vice president and dean of clinical affairs at Baylor College of Medicine, says he'd put the limit somewhere between six and 12.
Q: Can I hang out with people who haven't been fully vaccinated? Indoors? Without masks or physical distancing?
A: Yes, but with a bit more caution. "Indoor visits between fully vaccinated people and unvaccinated people who do not wear masks or physically distance from one another are likely low risk for the vaccinated people," the CDC writes.
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So even if you've been vaccinated, if you're seeing someone who's at high risk — over 65, or not healthy — you should still mask, maintain distance and stay outdoors.
And you should hang out with people only from one unvaccinated household at a time, the CDC says, since otherwise, the unvaccinated people risk infecting each other.
McDeavitt, who's fully vaccinated, feels safe wearing no masks with his adult children — and, even better, holding his infant and toddler grandkids.
Q: What about bigger gatherings, such as church or my 50th class reunion?
A: The CDC still recommends all people avoid medium-size and large gatherings. If you're vaccinated but choose to attend one anyway, the CDC recommends that you mask and stay at least 6 feet from other people.
Q: What about going out in public? Can I feel safe eating inside a restaurant? Or going to the gym?
A: If you've been fully vaccinated, the CDC says your risk of being infected at such places is "lower."
Q: So do I still have to take precautions in public?
A: Yes. The CDC's recommendations haven't changed there, so you should still behave the same, even if you've been vaccinated: Mask, maintain physical distance, cover coughs and sneezes, stay home if you feel sick, wash your hands and avoid being indoors with large numbers of people.
Q: Does this affect travel?
A: Those rules are still the same.
Q: If I'm fully vaccinated, can I be reinfected with COVID?
A: "Yes, but that's very unlikely," McDeavitt says. The CDC's new recommendations are based on the latest science.
Q: OK, so reinfection is unlikely — but it's still possible, right?
A: It's still possible, McDeavitt says. Here's why:
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1) The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were 95 percent effective in clinical trials, which means that unvaccinated people were 20 times more likely than vaccinated ones to be diagnosed with the virus. And when vaccinated people were infected, they tended to have less severe cases. But yes, there's still that 5 percent.
2) Virus variants are on the loose and are still evolving in ways that might make them better able to elude vaccine immunity. But they're still relatively rare.
3) We don't know how long vaccine-induced immunity will last. Most likely, McDeavitt thinks, it'll last at least a year — but since no one has been vaccinated for an entire year yet, we don't know that.
Q: If I'm vaccinated but have been around someone who has COVID, do I have to quarantine?
A: No, the CDC says. Not unless you show symptoms.
Q: If I have symptoms, does my being vaccinated change what I should do?
A: No. If you have symptoms, whether you've been vaccinated or not, isolate and get a test.
Q: When will our lives be back to normal?
A: McDeavitt's best guess is that we'll be largely back to normal once the U.S. reaches herd immunity — the point where so many people have COVID immunity, through vaccinations or previous infections, that the virus has trouble finding new people to infect, so infection rates head toward zero.
"Vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate," he says. "The bottom line is, we're close to the finish line now. We can get through this if we keep vaccinating and keep taking precautions. It's probably another 30 to 90 days that we need to keep wearing masks, social-distancing and staying out of crowded indoor spaces. We can get there!"
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Lisa Gray is a senior writer on the features desk. Previously, she's held many of the Chronicle's most interesting jobs: Senior editor for digital, features enterprise editor, member of the editorial board, acting op-ed editor, columnist--and, most fun of all, founding editor of Gray Matters, the Chronicle site named "Best Blog" in Texas three years in a row.
Email her at lisa.gray@chron.com. Or follow her on Facebook, where she spends way too much time.