The CDC released new guidelines for fully-vaccinated people yesterday, giving them permission to gather indoors with other fully vaccinated individuals -- with no masks or distancing.
Vaccinated individuals can also visit one household that isn't fully vaccinated (if the people in that household are not at risk for severe cases of COVID-19).
L.A. County Health Director Barbara Ferrer endorsed the guidelines and explained to us what they mean:
"Grandparents are now allowed to visit households with their grandchildren, they can hug their grandchildren, they can have a meal with their grandchildren."
Ferrer also said having the vaccine doesn't mean you
can't get someone sick. She said we should take precautions when around those with health risks:
"If you're gonna visit a relative in your family who's 70-years-old and she has diabetes and hasn't yet gotten her vaccine, you'd need to keep your face coverings on, as would she during that visit, and you should ideally do that visit outdoors."
Starting
March 15, Los Angeles County will begin offering the COVID-19 vaccine to people ages 16 and up with disabilities or underlying health conditions that make them more susceptible to severe illness if they're infected.
Ferrer says she's currently working with the state to figure out what exactly will be required for someone to prove their eligibility.
She says the simplest way to get the vaccine under this eligibility criteria will be if your healthcare provider is administering vaccines. You won't need to bring anything because your provider will already have your medical history.
Or you could go to your pharmacy, if they're administering the vaccine, Ferrer said:
"Your pharmacy may have enough information on you to verify you're a person with serious illness and you might not need a lot of verification there, but I think in most sites people will need some form of verification that they're in fact eligible."
She says there will be multiple ways to do that, none of which will require having a government-issued ID.
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