If you are vaccinated against COVID-19, you will not have to quarantine yourself if you are exposed

People who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and who have no symptoms should not be quarantined if exposed to someone with the disease, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in new guidelines published today. They should always follow other public health guidelines, such as wearing a mask.

A person is considered fully vaccinated if it has been more than two weeks since they received the second dose of a two-dose vaccine or a dose of a single-dose vaccine.

Even the best vaccines aren’t perfect protection against COVID-19. Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines, the two currently licensed in the United States, are about 95% effective in protecting against symptomatic disease. This means that there may be a small number of people vaccinated who could still get sick. The CDC says people who are not in quarantine should always watch for symptoms and get tested if they experience any.

Researchers still don’t know how long the vaccine protection lasts. So, for now, the CDC says people should only skip quarantine for three months after their last dose. This is the length of time that pharmaceutical companies have followed people enrolled in their clinical trials. This could change as companies have more time to collect and analyze data.

The guidelines are similar to those for people who have already had COVID-19 and who presumably have some level of natural immunity. If a person is within three months of their initial infection, they also don’t have to quarantine themselves unless they develop symptoms.

Scientists are still unsure whether people who get the vaccine can spread the coronavirus to others. Research is ongoing and the answers should soon become clearer. However, from what we know about vaccines and viral infections, there is a good chance that a vaccinated person is less contagious if they have an asymptomatic infection. For the CDC, the benefits of minimizing quarantines outweigh the potential, possibly small, risk of viral spread.

More than 33 million people in the United States have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.