Fully vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing, according to long-awaited guidance from federal health officials.

The recommendations

also say that vaccinated people can come together in the same way — in a single

household — with people considered at low-risk for severe disease, such as in

the case of vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy children and

grandchildren.

The Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention announced the guidance Monday.

“With more and more

people vaccinated each day, we are starting to turn a corner,” said CDC

Director Dr Rochelle Walensky.

However, the CDC continues

to recommend that fully vaccinated people still wear well-fitted masks, avoidlarge gatherings, and physically distancethemselves from others when out in public. The CDC also advisedvaccinated people to get tested if they develop symptoms that could be relatedto COVID-19.

Officials say a person

is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the last required dose

of vaccine. About 31 million Americans — or only about nine per cent of the US

population — have been fully vaccinated with a federally authorised COVID-19

vaccine so far, according to the CDC.