MONDAY, May 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) — The decision to ease mask rules for fully vaccinated Americans is based on science and not political pressure, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told media outlets on Sunday.
“I’m delivering the science as the science is delivered to the medical journals. And it evolved,” Rochelle Walensky, M.D., said on “FOX News Sunday,” the Associated Press reported. “I deliver it as soon as I can when we have that information available.”
New CDC guidelines released last week say that fully vaccinated people — those who are at least two weeks past their final dose of a COVID-19 vaccine — do not need to wear a mask outdoors in crowds and in most indoor settings and no longer have to social distance. But the CDC said that partially vaccinated or unvaccinated people should still wear masks and recommended that masks still be used in crowded indoor settings such as buses, airplanes, hospitals, prisons, and homeless shelters, the AP reported.
The new mask guidance sparked praise from those eager to return to prepandemic life, particularly those who see it as a way to reopen workplaces, schools, and other public venues. Yet concerns have been raised from those who say there is no easy way for businesses and others to determine who is fully vaccinated and who is not.
“I would imagine within a period of just a couple of weeks, you’re going to start to see significant clarification of some of the actually understandable and reasonable questions that people are asking,” Anthony Fauci, M.D., said on “Face the Nation.”
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