PITTSBURGH – The Pennsylvania Department of Health has changed its facial coatings to align with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to the CDC, there are several activities that people who are fully vaccinated can resume. They include:
- Visiting other fully vaccinated people indoors, without wearing masks or physical distance
- Visiting unvaccinated people from a single residence with a low risk of serious COVID-19 disease indoors, without wearing masks or physical distance
- Abstain from quarantine and test after known exposure, if asymptomatic
“People are considered fully vaccinated for COVID-19 more than two weeks after receiving the second dose in a series of two doses or more than two weeks after receiving a single dose vaccine,” a press release from the Department of Health declared.
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Vaccinated people should still be aware of the potential risk of transmitting the virus to others. In public, they must still wear masks and keep physical distance.
The Health Department said vaccinated people should continue to avoid medium and large face-to-face meetings, get tested if they show symptoms of COVID-19, follow employers’ guidelines and follow travel requirements and recommendations.
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The amended Department of Health order went into effect on March 17 and will remain in effect until further notice.
“The vaccines that are currently available across the state and country are highly effective in protecting people vaccinated against severe and symptomatic COVID-19,” said acting health secretary Alison Beam in a statement. “Research has shown that fully vaccinated people are less likely to have asymptomatic infection and potentially less likely to spread the virus that causes COVID-19 to others. However, there is still more to learn about how long protection lasts and how much vaccines protect against new variants of the virus, so some preventive measures will continue to be applied to all people, regardless of their vaccination status. “