CDC Says Vaccinated People Can Hang Out Together

Plus: Here’s why you shouldn’t burn your masks

Today the CDC issued a long-awaited guidance about what people who have been vaccinated for Covid-19 can and can’t do. The recommendations are encouraging: people who have been vaccinated can be indoors, without masks, with other vaccinated people as well as people who are at low risk for severe Covid-19. As hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to get vaccinated each day, it starts to feel like things could go back to normal pretty soon. Even the forecast for the economy is looking up. But experts are saying that we should still open-up cautiously, and states should stop dropping mask mandates. After all, the Covid-19 pandemic has cost the U.S. 3.9 million years of life in the past year alone.

Business

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said today that if it passes, the White Houses’ stimulus package could help jobs fully recover from the pandemic by next year. 

The health insurance lobby is spending $10 million on an ad blitz to tout how companies are caring for patients during the pandemic. 

Meet the companies that are using drones to deliver Covid-19 vaccines.

Science & Health

Why is the U.S. vaccinating so many more people than the E.U.? It comes down to vaccine supply and demand. 

The antidepressant medication fluvoxamine is being studied as a drug to prevent severe Covid-19. 

Eyeball swabs could be the next frontier of Covid-19 testing. At least it’s better than some of the alternatives. 

What Else We Are Reading

• How Vaccines Might Improve Long Covid (Elemental)

• How Inequity Gets Built Into America’s Vaccination System (ProPublica)

• 'Why Us?': A Year After Being Laid Off, Millions Are Still Unemployed (NPR)