TAMPA, Fla. — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has relaxed its guidelines on wearing masks outdoors for both vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans.
The move serves in some ways as an incentive to encourage those who have not yet gotten a shot, to do it.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding is an epidemiologist with the Federation of American Scientists. He spoke with 10 Tampa Bay’s Courtney Robinson to provide a sharper insight on the agency’s move.
Dr. Feigl-Ding says he’s glad there are incentives to vaccinate, but people should not become careless even if they’re fully vaccinated.
"My worry is A: there are a lot of people who resist, and B: and more importantly it sets up this social expectation of ‘Hey, he and she are able to do that, I want to do that, too,'" he said.
But, if you're fully vaccinated should you still be wearing masks?
"Yes, you should still wear masks. Many studies all show that the virus, although it has a much lower chance of infecting you, you can still be a ferry and as a ferry, you can still transmit to others."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines now say that fully vaccinated Americans don't need to cover their faces unless they are in a big crowd of strangers. Those who are unvaccinated do not need to wear masks while exercising outside.
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The CDC still says all Americans, vaccinated or not, should wear masks when they’re in large groups even outdoors.
"By being vaccinated, you reduce the transmission significantly. For Pfizer/Moderna vaccines, it’s about 95 percent if you’re vaccinated with both shots. And that reduces the chance of the virus being able to meander through all these different people to get to you, and so having more people vaccinated puts up more fences along the way for the virus and more difficulty for the virus to pass from person to person. Now, they are leaky fences, they are not perfect but putting this fence there is a degree of protection, and if enough people can do it that is what’s called vaccine herd immunity. The chance of the virus hop-skipping through the middle of a dance floor to you is very low," he said.
"That’s why the more adults that get vaccinated, the less chance that kids will be able to get it, the less chance that kids will be able to pass it between themselves in classrooms, and the less chance it will go to another family.”
As far as what type of masks, Dr. Feigl-Ding says cloth masks catch your droplets, so they essentially protect others from your germs.
He says double masks or premium masks like N-95s do both. They reduce you spreading germs and they prevent you from breathing in a higher percentage of particles.
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