The CDC says individuals who are fully vaccinated -- meaning two weeks after they have received the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine -- can safely gather around friends or family who are also vaccinated indoors without masks or social distancing, as well as visit with friends or family from a single household who aren't vaccinated but have a low risk of severe disease from COVID-19.
"If you and a friend or you and a family member are both vaccinated, you can have dinner together," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, without wearing masks and without distancing. "You can visit your grandparents, if you have been vaccinated and they have been too," she said in a White House briefing.
In a group where some individuals are vaccinated and some aren't, Walensky said the recommendations are more complicated. CDC says it is low risk for vaccinated individuals to gather with unvaccinated individuals indoors without masks and social distancing, as long as the people who aren't vaccinated are at low risk of severe disease and no one in their household is at high risk.
"Here's an example: If grandparents have been vaccinated, they can visit their daughter and her family, even if they have not been vaccinated, so long as the daughter and her family are not at risk for severe disease," she said.
The new guidance also says that vaccinated individuals don't need to quarantine or get tested if they come in contact with someone positive for COVID-19 and don't have any symptoms.
But in public, even people who have received the COVID-19 vaccine should continue to wear masks and maintain distance when in public, visiting with people at severe risk for COVID-19 disease who have not been vaccinated, or when socializing with groups of unvaccinated people from multiple households, even if they are at low risk of disease.