This feels like the Covid version of VJ day.
The US government, previously criticized for its slow-moving updates to mask and social distance guidance, went the other direction Thursday and made a simple and surprising declaration — get vaccinated and take off the masks and lose the distance. Take them off outdoors. Take them off indoors. Take them off for large gatherings and small. Seriously! And you don’t need to distance!!!! There are exceptions and qualifications. We will continue to wear them on planes and for other shared forms of travel. And you will want to wear them if your immune system is compromised — or if you can’t get vaccinated. Read CNN’s full report. What about the kids who can’t get a vaccine? And the poor kids under 12, who aren’t yet eligible for the vaccine, seem to be out of luck. There will be a difficult transition as the wee ones wait for vaccine approval and see grownups around them shedding their face coverings. There’s an argument that, since they don’t spread it in the same way, and so few children have died from Covid, there should be some leeway for them. But that doesn’t line up with the current guidance for schools and summer camps — though they’ll probably now have to work much harder to keep up standards going forward. But every other vaccinated person? Get back to normal and do it now. «We’ve got to make that transition. If you are vaccinated, you don’t have to wear a mask outside,» Fauci said on «CBS This Morning.» He added there are «very unusual» situations of going into an extremely crowded situation, «where people are essentially falling all over each other, then you wear a mask.» «But any other time, if your are vaccinated and you are outside, put aside your mask.» Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky went further during a briefing at the White House, announcing new guidance that vaccinated people can take off their masks in many places indoors, too. Related: Watch CNN Film’s «Race for the Vaccine» on Saturday, May 15, at 9 p.m. ET. I don’t think anyone was expecting the CDC to make this announcement Thursday, but it is about as unequivocal as you can imagine and she said it was based on studies from US and Israel showing 90% or more efficacy for vaccines in health care workers. Read exactly what Walensky said: Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing. If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic. We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy. Based on the continuing downward trajectory of cases, the scientific data on the performance of our vaccines and our understanding of how the virus spreads, that moment has come for those who are fully vaccinated. Is it time to hug a stranger? After the third time I read that quote, and the part about not having to physically distance, I seriously thought about going to ask a stranger on the street if they were vaccinated and if they wanted a full-on bear hug.
