CDC set to relax indoor mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated people

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to relax its indoor mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated people.

The government’s new advice will allow Americans to safely stop wearing masks inside most places, and will also recommend that vaccinated people do not have to wear masks outside in crowds.

But the CDC will continue to advise that masks are worn indoors in crowded indoor settings like buses, planes, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters.

The updated advice comes two weeks after the CDC recommended that fully vaccinated people continued to wear masks at all indoor settings, and outdoor at crowded situations like concerts and sporting events.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki refused to comment on the change at her daily press briefing on Thursday and deferred all requests to the CDC.

Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, was set to announce the new guidance on Thursday afternoon at a White House briefing.

Fully vaccinated people are those people who are two weeks past their last required Covid-19 vaccine dose.

The expected announcement comes the day after Ms Psaki said that the White House “understood” fully-vaccinated Americans’ frustrations at the slow pace of the loosening of mask-wearing requirements.

“Sometimes people will feel that it’s too slow, we understand, it is frustrating, I’m tired of wearing a mask too,” she admitted.

Ms Psaki told her Wednesday briefing that the White House would continue to be guided by the science and follow the CDC’s advice.

“We believe that health and medical experts should be our north star,” said Ms Psaki,

“As more people will be vaccinated there will be less and less need for certain restrictions and the CDC has said it will continue to evaluate the science and update their guidelines.

“Our objective is to make sure that the American people have confidence that we are leaning into, not making political decisions, but leaning into the advice and counsel of medical experts.”

More than 32.8m people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the United States during the pandemic, with 583,000 deaths caused by it.