CDC Guidance for Vaccinated People: What Are They Thinking?

Thank God (and Moderna) that I’ve finally gotten my two COVID-19 vaccinations and waited two weeks to become ‘fully vaccinated”!  Now I can resume a normal life, free from fears that I will contract the disease or pass it along to others.  Right?

Well not really.

The CDC today released its ‘Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People.’  Here’s what I can do:

• I can visit with other fully vaccinated people or low-risk unvaccinated people ‘from a single household’ without face masks or social distancing.
• I don’t have to be tested and quarantined if I am exposed to someone with COVID and don’t have COVID-19 symptoms.

Here’s what I still can’t do:

• Throw away my masks.  I still have to wear a mask and social distance in public.
• Visit with unvaccinated people from ‘multiple households’ without masks and social distancing unless I’m sure they’ve all been vaccinated.  That knocks out our traditional multi-family Easter brunch, since some of them are too young to get vaccines.
• Visit with older friends or other ‘increased risk’ people who haven’t been vaccinated without masks and social distancing.  I guess I’ll have to ask all my friends 65 and over to show me their vaccination cards before I can untie my mask.
• Attend gatherings that are ‘medium’ or ‘large-sized.’  I assume this includes theaters, concerts, museums, sporting events, my gym, restaurants, and church.
• Travel.  As the notice says, ‘CDC is not updating our travel recommendations and requirements at this time,’ and their guidance says, ‘CDC recommends that you do not travel.’  In addition, if I travel internationally, I still have to get a negative COVID-19 test before I fly back to the U.S., even if I don’t have any symptoms. This, of course, contradicts their statement that I don’t have to get tested if I am asymptomatic.

This is a great illustration of why the Biden administration can’t allow the CDC to govern the country.  This ‘guidance’ would keep our travel, leisure, and entertainment sectors – and our lives – locked down until we’ve all been vaccinated or COVID-19 has disappeared completely.  By that time, we would have blood in the streets.  Fortunately, most of the states are taking a different path.