Centers for Disease Control Reverses Holiday Recommendations

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed their holiday gathering advice on Monday, causing considerable consternation among Americans and medical professionals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated how Americans should safely celebrate the upcoming Christmas season on Friday. However, it reiterated many of the same suggestions made last year, such as choosing virtual celebrations rather than in-person gatherings. This is because more than half of the country has been adequately immunized against the coronavirus.

We need to improve on positivity and the message that these vaccines would help you get back to normal, and that genuinely sounded like we hadn’t spent the entire previous year trying to get people shots. The National Desk reported that the had removed the information from its website just three days after publishing its amended guidelines, blaming the error on a computer problem. The Fact Check team contacted the Centers for Disease Control to clarify its holiday advice and received an email answer after a few phone calls.

A few hours later, the Fact Check team called Nordlund to confirm that he was correct: the Centers for Disease Control did not intend to issue any holiday instructions. Dr. Anand Parekh, a former deputy assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, now serves as the Bipartisan Policy Center’s chief medical adviser. When asked about holiday travel, he responded, “If you’re vaccinated, you don’t need to get tested before and after vacation unless you have a known exposure to someone with COVID-19,” and that “you certainly don’t need to wear masks if you’re at home and everyone lives in the same household.”

Families travelling from all over the country, as well as those organising larger parties, should take care to protect the fragile and unvaccinated, he said. More than 185 million Americans have already received all of their vaccines. Many people are now looking forward to spending time with their loved ones over the holidays. That’s getting closer to becoming a safe reality as COVID-19 cases have started to fall in the previous month.