By Hailey Ruane
Staff Writer
The CDC released a new set of highly anticipated guidelines on March 8 for people who are now fully vaccinated.
The CDC states that vaccinated individuals can meet indoors with no masks among other fully vaccinated people. Beyond that, people are allowed to meet with unvaccinated people from one other household without masks, as long as they are not at a high risk if infected by the virus.
Although promising for the future, there are still restrictions in place for those who are vaccinated. Masks and social distancing are still required when in public and when around people from multiple households. Travelling is still strongly discouraged.
CDC guidelines also warn that, “We’re still learning how effective the vaccines are against variants of the virus that causes COVID-19. Early data show the vaccines may work against some variants but could be less effective against others.”
Variants could be another issue if the vaccines do not prevent the variants. CNN states that, “more readily transmissible variants have now been confirmed in nearly every state, while we work to quickly vaccinate people more and more each day, we have to see this through.”
Overall, the world has seen a rise in cases over the recent months. The U.S alone had a spike around the holidays. The New York Times reported “the seven-day average of daily new virus cases was 57,400 as of Wednesday — a decrease of 16 percent from two weeks earlier.”
The U.S. is vaccinating civilians at a relatively sufficient rate. With the recent increase in cases, the U.S. is nevertheless picking up the pace and holding its place as the country with the highest number of vaccinations. The New York Times states that the U.S. has vaccinated over 98 million people. The U.K follows in second place with over 24 million vaccinations.
People are eager to see family members and friends without the anxiety of the virus hanging over them. Although the news is promising, the CDC avises everyone to respect and follow the guidelines put in place in order for everyone's lives to return to normal sooner rather than later.
According to Forbes, President Biden stated “I believe we’ll have enough… by the middle of May. It’s going to take longer to get it into their arms, but that’s how much vaccine we’ll have.”
Even with the vaccines not being available to the entire population just yet, NPR recorded that 21% of the U.S. population has been vaccinated, and that over 2.1 million shots a day are being distributed.
