CDC Relaxes Rules for Indoor Mask-Wearing

In a major change that moves the country closer to normalcy, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 no longer need to wear masks indoors.

The new guidance, announced Thursday afternoon at a White House briefing, also says fully vaccinated people no longer need masks in crowds outdoors or indoors. They also no longer need to practice social distancing.

“Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities – large or small — without wearing a mask or physically distancing,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said at the briefing. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic.”

Walensky said studies have proven the coronavirus vaccines are effective, even against the variants that are circulating.

Because of the success of the vaccines and their widespread availability, Walensky said, the CDC changed the mask guidance.

She pointed out that people who have not been vaccinated remain at risk of illness or death or spreading COVID-19 to other people. Those people should get vaccinated right away, she said.

Requirements for masks on planes, trains and buses remain in place and health care facilities may still require masks, Walensky said.

So far, about 154 million Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Associated Press. More than 117 million have been fully vaccinated.

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