CDC says fully vaccinated can largely ditch masks in the U.S.

Fully-vaccinated Americans can return to life without masks, CDC says The CDC will no longer recommend masks for fully-vaccinated Americans indoors or outdoors, including in crowds, according to sweeping new guidance announced Thursday. ABC News ABC News

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has amended its guidance for fully vaccinated Americans, no longer recommending masks indoors or outdoors, including in crowds, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announced at a White House briefing Thursday.

"If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic," Walensky said, announcing the sweeping change. "Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing."

The new recommendation, which carves out exceptions for buses, planes, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters, will have significant implications for schools and businesses as the country begins to reopen. ...

The new recommendation is an about-face from guidance issued just 16 days earlier in which the CDC suggested masks should still be used indoors or in crowds even if people are fully immunized, which the CDC defines as two weeks after the final shot.

It also comes after Walensky faced criticism for the CDC being too slow to provide a path back to normalcy for fully vaccinated people, over 117 million of whom are in the U.S. Walensky has defended the CDC's approach as scientifically-based to ensure protection not just for individuals but also the entire U.S. population.

In announcing the decision Thursday, the CDC pointed to additional data from the last few weeks that show the vaccines work in the real world, stand up to the variants and make it unlikely vaccinated people can transmit the virus.

“In the last two weeks, the cases in this country have dropped by a third. In the last two weeks, we have had increasing available vaccine, and we now have available and eligible people between the ages of 12 and 15," Walensky said.

She also pointed to a "coalescence of more science that has emerged just in the last week” in three areas.

“One is the effectiveness of the vaccines in general in real world populations. One is the effectiveness against variants, which was just published last week. And then the effectiveness in preventing transmissibility,” Walensky said.

While states will still have the choice to implement their own guidelines -- nearly half of all states still had some sort of state-wide mask mandate in place as of Thursday morning -- the new guidance will have immediate implications for offices, schools and public-facing businesses.

At the same time, mask enforcement for non-vaccinated people will be challenging and is likely to re-up the discussion on vaccine passports, which some states have banned.

“With regard to what businesses, communities, schools we, of course, will be updating our guidance in many of these areas very shortly,” Walensky said on Thursday, but urged local public health departments to make the call in each community based on how many people are vaccinated and how many cases are in the area. ...

ALSO SEE:   Biden --  'Great day for America': Vaccinated can largely ditch masks