Vaccinated Americans can meet indoors under new guidelines

Joe Biden's vaccine programme is a cornerstone of the US president's recovery plan

Credit: Kevin Dietsch /UPI

Fully vaccinated Americans can gather indoors and visit ‘low-risk’ people from one other household without face masks, according to new guidance by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The highly anticipated recommendations, released on Monday, offer a roadmap to how vaccinated Americans can slowly resume day-to-day life and social activities despite daily Covid-19 cases remaining stubbornly high.

Under the CDC guidelines, people who have received both doses of a coronavirus vaccine can meet in small groups with other vaccinated people without wearing masks, but should keep wearing them outside the home.

Fully vaccinated people can also meet with unvaccinated, low-risk people from one other household without masks.

However larger in-person gatherings are still discouraged. Meeting with unvaccinated people who are deemed at a high risk from Covid-19 is also advised against.

#COVID19 vaccines are effective at protecting you from getting sick. Based on what we know, people who have been fully vaccinated can start to do some things that they had stopped doing because of the pandemic. To learn more, visit: https://t.co/FJMon7WlFO. pic.twitter.com/AjnGbe62us

— CDC (@CDCgov) March 8, 2021

"We’ve been through a lot this past year, and with more and more people getting vaccinated each day, we are starting to turn a corner," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told a White House briefing on Monday .

"And as more Americans are vaccinated, a growing body of evidence now tells us that there are some activities that fully vaccinated people can resume at low risk to themselves."

However Dr Walensky stressed: "It’s important to realise… that still over 90 percent of the population is not yet vaccinated, and that is our responsibility to make sure, in the context of 60,000 new cases a day, that we protect those who remain unvaccinated and vulnerable".

The CDC previously recommended that people should wear masks at all times when unable to keep at least six feet away from others, or at all times indoors other than in their own homes.

The updated recommendations come as the agency’s data suggests about 30 million people — almost 10 per cent of the US population — have been fully inoculated with Covid-19 vaccines.

Nearly 18 per cent of the US population, or 58.9 million adults, had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to the CDC.

To date the US has approved jabs by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson but there is still limited data on whether inoculated people can still transmit the virus to others.