US CDC eases guidelines on masks

US health officials said Tuesday that people who have been fully vaccinated and have waited at least two weeks after their last shot don't need to wear masks outdoors when alone, with members of their household and other vaccinated family and friends or in small gatherings.

The CDC also said vaccinated people can gather in small groups outdoors without masks even if the group includes unvaccinated individuals.

Fully vaccinated people also don't need to wear masks indoors with other fully vaccinated people, or with unvaccinated people of any age from one other household, unless someone in the group is at heightened risk from COVID-19.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the new guidance in another step on the road back to normal from the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 570,000 people in the US.

In remarks outside the White House a short while later, President Joe Biden credited "the extraordinary progress we've made in fighting this virus" for allowing these new guidelines, which he said are "helping us get back ... to normal in our living".

"We're back to that place now, as long as you get vaccinated," he said.

Biden said the new guidance is a step toward getting "life in America closer to normal" by his target date of the Fourth of July.

CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky announced the guidelines at a press briefing, saying the agency had made the changes after studying how likely vaccinated people are to transmit the virus.

"Today is another day we can take a step back to the normalcy of before," said Walensky. "If you are fully vaccinated, things are much safer for you than those who are not yet fully vaccinated."

For most of the past year, the CDC had been advising people to wear masks outdoors if they are within 6 feet of each other. The change comes as more than half of US adults have gotten at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and more than a third have been fully vaccinated.

Fully vaccinated people can also meet with unvaccinated people of any age indoors without masks as long as the group consists of just two households and the unvaccinated people aren't at increased risk for severe COVID-19.

The fully vaccinated should also wear masks at indoor gatherings with unvaccinated people, visits to a barber, hair salon, shopping mall, museum, movie theater or crowded house of worship, the agency said.

Unvaccinated people — defined by the CDC as those who have yet to receive both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson formula — should wear masks at outdoor gatherings that include other unvaccinated people. They also should keep using masks at outdoor restaurants.

The CDC stopped short of telling vaccinated people they could shed masks altogether in outdoor settings, saying vaccinated adults should continue wearing masks and staying 6 feet apart in large public spaces, like outdoor performance or sports events, indoor shopping malls and movie theaters, where the vaccination and health status of others would be unknown. And they still should avoid medium and large gatherings, crowds and poorly ventilated spaces, officials said.

"It's the return of freedom," Dr Mike Saag, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told The Associated Press. "It's the return of us being able to do normal activities again. We're not there yet, but we're on the exit ramp. And that's a beautiful thing."

The CDC, which has been cautious in its guidance during the crisis, essentially endorsed what many people have already been doing over the past several weeks. So far, 15 governors have let their state orders requiring people to wear face coverings in public expire. Many cities and local jurisdictions also have begun to increase capacity at restaurants and businesses.

"The timing is right because we now have a fair amount of data about the scenarios where transmission occurs," said Mercedes Carnethon, a professor and vice-chair of preventive medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. What's more, she said, "the additional freedoms may serve as a motivator" for people to get vaccinated.

A review paper published in February in the Journal of Infectious Diseases by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that less than 10 percent of transmission occurs outdoors and the odds of spreading the virus indoors were 19 times higher.