CDC Says Fully Vaccinated People May Travel

[DrSchadenfreude]

CDC Says Fully Vaccinated People May Travel
Agency updates its guidance because of studies showing real-world effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines and rapid pace of vaccinations, now close to 3 million people daily.
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/04/02/cdc-fully-vaccinated-may-travel/


April 2, 2021

Federal health officials gave the green light Friday for fully vaccinated people to resume travel as an estimated 100 million Americans have had at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, and evidence mounts of the shots’ effectiveness.

The long-awaited guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is welcome news for the growing number of vaccinated adults who want greater freedom to visit family members and take vacations for the first time in a year. It is also expected to help boost the travel and airline industries that have been seeking a relaxation of restrictions. Until Friday’s announcement, officials were still discouraging people who had been fully vaccinated from traveling.

The agency updated its guidance because of several newly released studies documenting the strong real-world effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines in protecting against infection and spread of the virus, and the rapid pace of vaccinations, now close to 3 million people a day.

For domestic travel, people who are two weeks past their final shot do not need to get a coronavirus test before or after trips and do not need to self-quarantine after travel. That means grandparents who are fully vaccinated can fly to visit their grandchildren without getting a coronavirus test or self-quarantining, provided they follow the other recommended public health measures, such as wearing masks on planes, buses, trains and other forms of public transportation.

For international travel, fully vaccinated people do not need to be tested before their trips unless it is required by the destination, the guidance says. For their return to the United States, fully vaccinated people should get tested and have a negative result before they board an international flight back to the United States.

Nearly 40 percent of all adults have received at least one dose of a vaccine and more than 1 in 5 adults are now fully vaccinated, including more than half of seniors, according to the CDC. On Friday, the United States is expected to pass the milestone of 100 million people getting at least one dose.

“With millions of Americans getting vaccinated every day, it is important to update the public on the latest science about what fully vaccinated people can do safely, now including guidance on safe travel,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. “We continue to encourage every American to get vaccinated as soon as it’s their turn, so we can begin to safely take steps back to our everyday lives. Vaccines can help us return to the things we love about life.”

Friday’s guidance builds on the agency’s initial recommendations last month that said fully vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing. Those recommendations also say that vaccinated people can come together in the same way with unvaccinated members in one other household considered at low risk for severe disease, such as vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy children and grandchildren. Fully vaccinated people, the agency said, should keep following health and safety precautions in public, including wearing a mask.

Since the initial guidance was released March 8, the number of Americans who are fully vaccinated has almost doubled, to over 56 million people, or about 17 percent of the total population, according to the CDC.

Inoculation efforts in the United States have accelerated as states push to make more adults eligible for shots from one of three authorized vaccines, heeding a call from the president to rapidly expand eligibility. Virtually all states have announced that they have already or will open up eligibility to all those 16 and older by May 1. President Biden has set a goal to have 200 million doses administered under his presidency by April 30, and the nation is already poised to meet that target.

The agency updated its recommendations because of newly released studies showing the real-world effectiveness of the vaccines.

In a study released Monday of about 4,000 health-care personnel and essential workers, the CDC found the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines reduced the risk of infection by 80 percent two weeks after one shot. Protection increased to 90 percent two weeks after the second dose. The study is significant because it is one of the first to estimate vaccine effectiveness against infection — rather than just monitoring for symptomatic cases — including infections that resulted in no symptoms, according to the CDC.

On Thursday, new data from the ongoing trial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has reinforced early results showing its high efficacy and provided the first hint that the vaccine may work against the more-virulent B. 1.351 variant first detected in South Africa, which has raised global alarm because it can evade some forms of immunity. The updated trial data was announced by news release from the U.S. firm Pfizer and the German company BioNTech and has yet to be peer-reviewed and published.

The updated guidance is another piece of good news for the air and travel industries, which have been pushing the CDC to update its recommendations. The shift is likely to give another boost to airlines, which last month recorded their best month for passenger traffic since the pandemic began more than a year ago.

Officials with the Transportation Security Administration said there were 26 days in March when more than a million people moved through security checkpoints. That number is still far below 2019 when TSA was routinely screening more than 2 million passengers a day, but significantly higher than this point last year. For example on April 1 of last year, only 124,021 people moved through those checkpoints.

The gains have largely been driven by domestic travelers; more lucrative business customers still have not returned. Even so, airlines executives are hopeful the spring travel boom will translate to a busy summer season.

In addition to urging the CDC to update its travel guidance for those who have been fully vaccinated, the industry is also pushing the administration to lift restrictions on international visitors.

Last month, a coalition of travel groups, including Airlines for America and the U.S. Travel Association, sent a four-page letter to Jeffrey Zients, the White House’s covid-19 response coordinator, saying they were eager to partner with the administration on a plan to reopen the U.S. to international visitors.

“We are ready to welcome back travelers and keep them safe,” the coalition wrote. “And the time to plan for and chart a defined road map to reopen international travel is now.”

[Buckeye Dale]

...so in the absence of any real leadership, they're taking charge of the country?

[DrSchadenfreude]

Apr 2, 2021 11:15:36 GMT -5 Buckeye Dale said:

...so in the absence of any real leadership, they're taking charge of the country?

Huh?  Absence of any real leadership?  As in January of 2017 to January of 2021?  

[dilligaf]

Apr 2, 2021 11:15:36 GMT -5 Buckeye Dale said:

...so in the absence of any real leadership, they're taking charge of the country?

I'm curious.   Who gave the CDC the power or authority to pass laws?  Can someone show me the law that gives them the power to control Americans?

f the CDC.   I will travel where I want to, when I want to, and I will interact with anyone I want to.

I don't travel on airliners, trains, buses or cruise ships.

Contributing to mass hysteria  like the CDC is doing is NOT science.  It is bullshit politics.

[Panama pfRedd]

The ass holes in CA are telling us that we can only go a short distance from home and should never travel out of state. FFUKK that! We just got back from a week in Viva Las Vegas!
Control control control. Liberals disgust me.

[dilligaf]

Apr 2, 2021 18:01:06 GMT -5 Panama pfRedd said:

The ass holes in CA are telling us that we can only go a short distance from home and should never travel out of state. FFUKK that! We just got back from a week in Viva Las Vegas!
Control control control. Liberals disgust me.

Travel where you want, when you want, and push hard to have your idiot governor recalled from office.

You are a white male conservative who supports freedom, and Demoncrats HATE YOU for that.

[daleko]

more lucrative business customers still have not returned. It may not for a bit and it'll be reduced going forward. Technology to some, maybe a large, degree will replace business travel, at the non-exec level. What may mitigate that change is the airlines not using the business traveler to subsidize the recreational traveler. Ditto for Hotels and convention facilities, in none destination locations. Exceptions being locations that people might want to visit, absent business.

In addition to urging the CDC to update its travel guidance for those who have been fully vaccinated, the industry is also pushing the administration to lift restrictions on international visitors. Last month, a coalition of travel groups, including Airlines for America and the U.S. Travel Association, sent a four-page letter to Jeffrey Zients, the White House’s covid-19 response coordinator, saying they were eager to partner with the administration on a plan to reopen the U.S. to international visitors. If you go to "papers please" intra, that's a must for inter. The Admin might want to start w not letting the unvaxed from the South roam. And that'll be the most difficult part, in general, globally. It'll probably be through 2022, maybe into 2023, before the gap between the "wealthy" countries and the "poorer" ones, who are fully vaxed, is closed.

[DrSchadenfreude]

Likely Legal, ‘Vaccine Passports’ Emerge as the Next Coronavirus Divide

Businesses and universities want fast, easy ways to see if students and customers are vaccinated, but conservative politicians have turned “vaccine passports” into a cultural flash point
www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/politics/vaccine-passports-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage


April 6, 2021

WASHINGTON — Cathay Pacific airlines, convinced that digital proof of coronavirus vaccination will bring about the return of safe international travel, asked its pilots and crew to try out a new mobile app that showed their vaccination status on a recent flight from Hong Kong to Los Angeles.

New York has rolled out “Excelsior Pass,” billed by the state as “a free, fast and secure way to present digital proof of Covid-19 vaccination” in case reopening sports and entertainment venues require proof of attendees’ status.

And Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, is offering electronic verification apps to patients vaccinated in its stores so they “can easily access their vaccine status as needed,” the company says.

Around the country, businesses, schools and politicians are considering “vaccine passports” — digital proof of vaccination against the coronavirus — as a path to reviving the economy and getting Americans back to work and play. Businesses especially fear that too many customers will stay away unless they can be assured that the other patrons have been inoculated.

But the idea is raising charged legal and ethical questions: Can businesses require employees or customers to provide proof — digital or otherwise — that they have been vaccinated when the coronavirus vaccine is ostensibly voluntary?

Can schools require that students prove they have been injected with what is still officially an experimental prophylaxis the same way they require long-approved vaccines for measles and polio? And finally, can governments mandate vaccinations — or stand in the way of businesses or educational institutions that demand proof?

Legal experts say the answer to all of these questions is generally yes, though in a society so divided, politicians are already girding for a fight. Government entities like school boards and the Army can require vaccinations for entry, service and travel — practices that flow from a 1905 Supreme Court ruling that said states could require residents to be vaccinated against smallpox or pay a fine.

“A community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members,” Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the 1905 case.

Private companies, moreover, are free to refuse to employ or do business with whomever they want, subject to only a few exceptions, ones that do not include vaccination status. And states can probably override that freedom by enacting a law barring discrimination based on vaccination status.

But as the nation struggles to emerge from the worst public health crisis in a century, the arrival of digital vaccine verification apps — a modern version of the World Health Organization’s “yellow card” that provides international proof of yellow fever vaccination — has generated intense debate over whether proof of vaccination can be required at all.

On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas became the latest Republican governor to issue an executive order barring state agencies and private entities receiving funds from the state from requiring proof of vaccination. The World Health Organization, citing equity concerns, also said on Tuesday that it currently did not support mandatory proof of vaccination for international travel.

Others are moving forward. Universities like Rutgers, Brown and Cornell have already said they will require proof of vaccination for students this fall. The Miami Heat this week became the first team in the N.B.A. to open special “vaccinated only” sections.

And though businesses have yet to announce outright bans on unvaccinated clientele, some states and technology firms are preparing: At least 17 companies or nonprofits are developing websites or apps that might be used by sporting venues, restaurants and other businesses seeking to keep their customers and employees safe, according to Joel White, the executive director of the Health Innovation Alliance, a broad coalition of health providers, tech companies, employers and insurers.

Airlines including JetBlue and United are also testing the “CommonPass” app, developed by The Commons Project, a nonprofit trust dedicated to using technology to help people control their personal information. Airlines for America, the trade group for the nation’s major carriers, opposes making proof of vaccination mandatory for air travel but would like a clean, easy way for travelers to show their status. Other countries may require proof of vaccination, and the apps can also be used to prove negative coronavirus test results, which the United States requires for international travelers.

“On the face of things, requiring proof of vaccination seems a lot like, ‘No shoes, no shirt, no service,’” said Mark Tushnet, a law professor at Harvard.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already provides everyone who is vaccinated a card that can serve as proof, and people can always carry paper records of negative coronavirus tests. But industry leaders liken digital vaccination apps to security screening services like TSA PreCheck; it is not required, but it might make the travel experience smoother.

In Israel, a “Green Pass” is already in place that allows vaccinated citizens to go to restaurants, concerts and sporting events.

Backers of digital vaccination cards are pressing the Biden administration to become involved, at least by setting standards for privacy and for verifying the accuracy of the records.

The White House is clearly skittish.

“The government is not now nor will we be supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday. “There will be no federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential.”

She promised that the administration would provide some form of guidance — most likely in the form of questions and answers — about privacy, security, discrimination and concerns.

Last week, the chief technology officer of the Department of Health and Human Services held a conference call with state and local health officials, who are mystified by the administration’s reticence.

“It’s going to be necessary to have this, and there is going to have to be some kind of system where it’s verified,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “I think everybody in our network is a little bit perplexed by the way the federal government seems to be at arm’s-length with this.”

One arm of the government has offered some help: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has told employers that they can mandate coronavirus vaccination because public health comes first. But if an employee cannot get vaccinated because of a disability or a sincerely held religious belief, and the company cannot make an accommodation, the agency said, “then it would be lawful for the employer to exclude the employee from the workplace.”

Conservatives and libertarians, though, are resisting such mandates. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Friday signed an executive order barring businesses from requiring patrons or customers to show vaccine documentation, under penalty of losing state contracts. Mississippi’s Republican governor, Tate Reeves, said on Sunday that he too opposed the idea.

That has left technology executives like Stanley Campbell in the lurch. His firm, EagleForce, which specializes in health records, has created “myVax,” a digital platform that, he said, might even be used by farmers to screen their workers. Mr. Campbell, a Florida native, pitched the idea to Florida’s agriculture commissioner last week — a day before Mr. DeSantis issued his ban.

“It’s not really a political football, which is what they keep using this thing as,” said Mr. Campbell, whose wife, Cheryl Campbell, is also a health care technology expert and recently joined the Biden administration. “It’s sad because Florida could lead the nation in this if we just took a minute to talk and think it through.”

Mr. DeSantis’s order has already altered the back-to-school plans for Nova Southeastern University, based in Fort Lauderdale, which had announced a policy for returning students to be vaccinated. The university’s president and chief executive officer, George Hanbury, said the university was reviewing the order and planned to follow it.

“We’re not trying to do anything but protect our students,” he said.

Republican critics say vaccine passports raise the specter of centralized databases of vaccinated people, which they view as a government intrusion on privacy.

“A vaccine passport—a unified, centralized system for providing or denying access to everyday activities like shopping and dining—would be a nightmare for civil liberties and privacy,” Justin Amash, a former Republican congressman who is now a libertarian, wrote on Twitter last week.

But, in fact, every state already has a database, or an “immunization registry.” And under “data use agreements,” the states are required to share their registries with the C.D.C., though the agency de-identifies the information and not all states have agreed to provide it.

And digital vaccine cards are not new. STChealth, an Arizona-based health care technology company, created an app called MyIR — my immunization record — about five years ago with the idea of helping parents who need their children’s vaccination records for school or camp. The app, which is free, connects with the immunization registries of five states and can verify vaccination data for those states’ residents.

“We never built it as a digital passport kind of thing because that wasn’t an issue at the time,” the company’s chief executive officer, Mike Popovich, said in an interview. “But here in Arizona, I got my Covid shot and four hours later, I could use that to take a look at my record that had been reported to the state information system — and there it was.”

With apps already proliferating, the Health Innovation Alliance sent a letter last month to Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, calling on the administration to set standards. Mr. White, the organization’s executive director, said the group had not gotten an answer.

He said he understood his fellow Republicans’ concerns, but disagreed.

“We live in a free society where people are free to work or not, to go to concerts or not, to go to restaurants or not,” Mr. White said. “And when you are dealing with a highly infectious disease that is transmissible particularly in closed spaces — and that can kill you — it is not unreasonable for businesses in a free society to protect their employees and protect their patrons by asking people if they have been vaccinated.”

[dilligaf]

EVERYONE may travel FREELY in their own vehicles.    The U.S. is not a police state.  YET.

f anti-freedom CDC and any idiot who listens to them and/or the politically motivated idiot Dr. Falsy.

[DrSchadenfreude]

Apr 6, 2021 22:13:02 GMT -5 dilligaf said:

EVERYONE may travel FREELY in their own vehicles.    The U.S. is not a police state.  YET.

f anti-freedom CDC and any idiot who listens to them and/or the politically motivated idiot Dr. Falsy.

FYI. The SCOTUS upheld the right of U.S. communities to protect themselves from deadly epidemics in the 1905 Jacobsen case in Boston.

[dilligaf]

Apr 7, 2021 10:33:11 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

Apr 6, 2021 22:13:02 GMT -5 dilligaf said:

EVERYONE may travel FREELY in their own vehicles.    The U.S. is not a police state.  YET.

f anti-freedom CDC and any idiot who listens to them and/or the politically motivated idiot Dr. Falsy.

FYI. The SCOTUS upheld the right of U.S. communities to protect themselves from deadly epidemics in the 1905 Jacobsen case in Boston.

There is no deadly epidemic in the U.S. at this time.   

With a survival rate of over 98%, COVID can hardly be called "deadly."

How many deaths have been falsely attributed to the flu in order to keep the hysteria alive and maintain control over you idiot sheeple?

The only thing we are experiencing is an annoying, but not excessively fatal, pandemic.

To show how stupid Americans are, if 500 people die in one crash of a 747, does that mean that flying is dangerous?  Wow, we had 500 die from one plane crash!
So what?   All that means is a large group of people died from a singular event, but the MAJORITY of airline passengers fly safely their entire lives.  Naturally the 500 families who lost loved ones will go all Chicken Little and claim that flying is dangerous, but that is an emotional, irrational response, just like the overblown fear of COVID being perpetuated by Demoncrats and other control freak devils.

Yes, flying CAN be fatal, but the death % rate,  just like COVID, is extremely small.   When your time is up, it's up.

You got your shot, or will get it.    Dr. Falsy now has ordained you as safe.  He is God to you fools.
So sit down, shut the f up with your lies, and let the rest of us live in safe freedom.

[DrSchadenfreude]

Apr 7, 2021 19:38:29 GMT -5 dilligaf said:

Apr 7, 2021 10:33:11 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

FYI. The SCOTUS upheld the right of U.S. communities to protect themselves from deadly epidemics in the 1905 Jacobsen case in Boston.

There is no deadly epidemic in the U.S. at this time.   

With a survival rate of over 98%, COVID can hardly be called "deadly."

How many deaths have been falsely attributed to the flu in order to keep the hysteria alive and maintain control over you idiot sheeple?

The only thing we are experiencing is an annoying, but not excessively fatal, pandemic.

To show how stupid Americans are, if 500 people die in one crash of a 747, does that mean that flying is dangerous?  Wow, we had 500 die from one plane crash!
So what?   All that means is a large group of people died from a singular event, but the MAJORITY of airline passengers fly safely their entire lives.  Naturally the 500 families who lost loved ones will go all Chicken Little and claim that flying is dangerous, but that is an emotional, irrational response, just like the overblown fear of COVID being perpetuated by Demoncrats and other control freak devils.

Yes, flying CAN be fatal, but the death % rate,  just like COVID, is extremely small.   When your time is up, it's up.

You got your shot, or will get it.    Dr. Falsy now has ordained you as safe.  He is God to you fools.
So sit down, shut the f up with your lies, and let the rest of us live in safe freedom.

Over 500,000 Americans have died from COVID during the past year, Bryan.  It's deadly.

And thousands more are suffering from long-term sequelae of COVID infections.

You blather a lot about your rights to forego vaccination and certification of vaccination.

What about other people's rights to not be infected by jerks who don't want to get vaccinated, or offer proof of vaccination?

[dilligaf]

Apr 7, 2021 21:37:34 GMT -5 DrSchadenfreude said:

Apr 7, 2021 19:38:29 GMT -5 dilligaf said:

There is no deadly epidemic in the U.S. at this time.   

With a survival rate of over 98%, COVID can hardly be called "deadly."

How many deaths have been falsely attributed to the flu in order to keep the hysteria alive and maintain control over you idiot sheeple?

The only thing we are experiencing is an annoying, but not excessively fatal, pandemic.

To show how stupid Americans are, if 500 people die in one crash of a 747, does that mean that flying is dangerous?  Wow, we had 500 die from one plane crash!
So what?   All that means is a large group of people died from a singular event, but the MAJORITY of airline passengers fly safely their entire lives.  Naturally the 500 families who lost loved ones will go all Chicken Little and claim that flying is dangerous, but that is an emotional, irrational response, just like the overblown fear of COVID being perpetuated by Demoncrats and other control freak devils.

Yes, flying CAN be fatal, but the death % rate,  just like COVID, is extremely small.   When your time is up, it's up.

You got your shot, or will get it.    Dr. Falsy now has ordained you as safe.  He is God to you fools.
So sit down, shut the f up with your lies, and let the rest of us live in safe freedom.

Over 500,000 Americans have died from COVID during the past year, Bryan.  It's deadly.

And thousands more are suffering from long-term sequelae of COVID infections.

You blather a lot about your rights to forego vaccination and certification of vaccination.

What about other people's rights to not be infected by jerks who don't want to get vaccinated, or offer proof of vaccination?

So IF accurate, 500,000 is less than 2% of HOW MANY WHO SURVIVED?   No, covid is deadly to a FEW.

"Long term?"   LOL.    Covid 19 hasn't been around long enough for long term to be factored in to anything.

If you are that scared of a relatively harmless disease/bacteria/whatever the hell it is, keep your ass at home and stay out of the way of people who aren't fooled and will enjoy their FREEDOM.   Freedom is much more important than your baseless fears.  And YES, I have the right to control my body in the same way that a woman has the right to control HER body, and murder her unborn baby, if she wants to.

Rights are rights, Comrade.

Apparently the 747 crash comparison went right over your head.  500,000 deaths ARE a lot -----------------  until you look at how many people have NOT died from COVID.

You and Wally would be dancing happily and tickled shitless if the cancer survival rate were > 98%.    You would consider that a great victory, yet you whine and cry about COVID that doesn't even come close to being as deadly as cancer.


Besides, if you got your precious vaccine, you are safe now, according to Dr. Falsy and other politically motivated idiots.

We are done here.

[DrSchadenfreude]

COVID-19: Long-term effects

www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351

[dilligaf]

The CDC is so damn stupid and left wing, that not only are they anti-gun, now they say "racism" is a danger to public health.   And those radical, dumb MFrs are SERIOUS!!

LMMFAO!    Anyone who listens to CDC is a total idiot.

www.cdc.gov/healthequity/racism-disparities/index.html