Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) could soon release more relaxed safety recommendations for people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
In an interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, Fauci said the CDC will likely issue guidance after agency officials “sit down, talk about it, look at the data and then come out with a recommendation based on the science.”
Fauci, who also serves as President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said that for fully vaccinated individuals, “common sense tells you that, in fact, you don’t have to be as stringent in your public health measures,” but added, “we want to get firm recommendations from the CDC, which I believe will be coming soon.”
Fauci went on to say that the CDC “started off with an important recommendation,” by announcing earlier this month that people who have been fully vaccinated no longer need to quarantine if they are exposed to someone who is infected with COVID-19.
The CDC said the new guidance applies only to those who have had both doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines — the shots currently available to the U.S. public.
The agency also said that at least two weeks must have passed since the second dose was administered, as studies have shown that full immunity is not built up until a couple of weeks after completing the vaccine regimen.
However, Fauci on Tuesday said additional guidance from the CDC is needed.
“I believe you’re going to be hearing more of the recommendations of how you can relax the stringency of some of the things, particularly when you’re dealing with something like your own personal family when people have been vaccinated,” he said.
When pressed on when the new guidance might be released, Fauci said there was no firm date.
“I agree, they’re questions that we need to answer pretty soon because more and more people are going to be vaccinated. Every single day there’ll be more and more people and they’re going to be asking that question,” Fauci added.
The Hill has reached out to the CDC for comment.
As of Monday, the CDC had recorded more than 64.1 million coronavirus vaccinations administered, with approximately 44.1 million people already receiving at least one dose and 19.4 million fully inoculated with two doses.
Johnson & Johnson, whose coronavirus candidate vaccine is set to be reviewed by a Food and Drug Administration committee on Friday, said Monday that it plans to have enough doses of its vaccine for more than 20 million Americans by the end of March.
Unlike the vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna, the Johnson & Johnson inoculation only requires one dose, providing the possibility for millions more people to be completely vaccinated should it be granted emergency use authorization.