Vaccinated People Not Required to Wear a Mask, CDC New Mandate Confirms

Centers for Disease and Control Prevention recently announced that people with the vaccine are not required to wear a mask. This was a relief for most people who got the vaccine, as the mandate will be the first to bring back the normal.

A recent study confirms that people can now be maskless in selected circumstances, indoors or outdoors. According to the published research by CDC entitled "Interim Estimates of Vaccine Effectiveness of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 Vaccines Among Health Care Personnel - 33 U.S. Sites, January-March 2021", most frontliners who were vaccinated with either Pfizer and Moderna was not infected with the virus.

An estimated 95% immunity was recorded from health workers since the rollout of the first batch of vaccines. Moreover, even a single dose exhibits 82% of protection, reports CNN.

In reference to the said study, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, current director of CDC, said that the impact from the covid-19 vaccines is performing as expected. She added that being vaccinated is the most essential way to prevent the risk of contracting covid-19, evading the illness and death brought by the virus. Walensky also mentioned that the vaccines would not only help individuals but the people around them, too.

Like the recent study, initial research by the CDC was already conducted, advocating the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccines. The first research shows that 4,000 health workers were confirmed negative with the virus after continuous testing.

Vaccines are Effective and Give High Immunity Rate

According to the initial testing by CDC's MMWR Early Release, 63% are vaccinated, and 11% are asymptomatic out of the weekly-tested subjects. Individuals who got two shots of either Moderna or Pfizer were 90% got negative test results instead of individuals who only got a single shot of the vaccine.

Along with CDC's release, Israel also reported their separate study. According to their published research in Nature Medicine entitled "Initial report of decreased SARS-CoV-2 viral load after inoculation with the BNT162b2 vaccine", vaccinated individuals that caught the virus experienced a 4X lower viral load compared to the unvaccinated ones.

Roy Kishony, one of the research writers of the said article, shared that the viral loads instantly decreased in people after taking the dose 12-37 days. This finding is significant proof of the success in vaccines, adding further evidence of already established statistics of CDC.

Immunity Increases, Risk of Infection Drops

Overall, the recent studies alleviate worries and shed light on a great number of people that are still hesitant to take the vaccine. With just a single dose of a vaccine, 80% protection rate at hand, and more than 90% for the double.

In reference to the recent CDC studies, almost 50% of UST citizens are already vaccinated with at least one dose of the vaccine, and more than 30% have received a full dose. Thus, the number of vaccinated people suggests that infection and transmission rates will drop.

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