PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday that fully vaccinated Americans do not need to wear masks outdoors unless they are in large crowds of strangers.
Unvaccinated people can drop face coverings in some cases, too.
The change comes as more than half of U.S. adults have gotten at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and more than one-third have been fully vaccinated.
Prior guidelines from the CDC suggest that "masks may not be necessary when you are outside by yourself away from others, or with people who live in your household."
While wearing a mask in a public setting is part of the mask orders in place in Philadelphia, the rest of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware — those who are outdoors and can maintain social distance with those who are not in their household are not required to wear a mask.
The CDC now says that, fully vaccinated or not, people do not have to wear masks outdoors when they walk, bike or run alone or with members of their household. They can also go maskless in small outdoor gatherings with fully vaccinated people.
But from there, the CDC has differing guidance for people who are fully vaccinated and those who are not.
Unvaccinated people — defined by the CDC as those who have yet to receive both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson formula — should wear masks at outdoor gatherings that include other unvaccinated people. They also should keep using masks at outdoor restaurants.
Fully vaccinated people do not need to cover up in those situations, the CDC says.
However, everyone should keep wearing masks at crowded outdoor events such as concerts or sporting events, the CDC says.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said the latest CDC advice on outdoor masks is similar to New Jersey's current policy.
"Our guidance for masking outdoors has been from the get go in this pandemic you need to wear a mask if you can't socially distance. If you can, you don't need to," Murphy told MSNBC Tuesday.
He had raised the outdoor gathering limit from 200 to 500 people, effective May 10.
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“We will certainly, as we always do, take the CDC guidance seriously and work with that guidance and continue to open our state up," Murphy said.
The CDC continues to recommend masks at indoor public places, such as hair salons, restaurants, shopping centers, museums and movie theaters.
"The risk of infection outside is really minimum. If you’re vaccinated and you’re outside, it’s even less," White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Facui said at an online event with the Harvard Chan School of Public Health on Monday.
He added that the CDC makes recommendations based on data, modeling or "common sense public health measures."
Researchers, in a review of five studies that was published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, found that less than 10% of reported global COVID-19 infections occurred outdoors, and the risk of indoor transmission was nearly 19 times higher.
Plus, there’s the protection of being vaccinated. Early studies show, even in breakthrough infections, fully vaccinated people have a lower viral load and so they have less chance of spreading the virus to others. According to the CDC, as of Monday, 95 million adults (37% of the total adult population) in the United States are fully vaccinated.