CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen is recommending unvaccinated Americans only congregate with other unvaccinated people in outdoor settings during the Fourth of July weekend.
“Are you vaccinated? For unvaccinated people, the risk of Covid-19 remains high. This is particularly true with the more contagious Delta variant spreading throughout the United States,” Wen said in a Friday Q&A.
“People who are unvaccinated should really only be with other unvaccinated people in outdoor settings. If there is only one unvaccinated person and everyone else is vaccinated — for example, if there is an unvaccinated child but all the adults are vaccinated — that’s low risk,” she continued, asserting the risk “becomes higher if there are unvaccinated people from multiple households mixing indoors,” which she does not recommend.
Fully vaccinated individuals, she continued, are “well-protected” from contracting the virus and more contagious virus variants.
She ultimately said the concern and risks around social gatherings during the holiday weekend are mostly dependent on the vaccination status of attendees.
“That’s unless it’s outdoors, in which case it should be safe even for unvaccinated people to attend with other unvaccinated people,” she said.
The CNN medical analyst’s advice comes as the Biden administration will miss the 70 percent vaccination rate it originally aimed to reach by July 4.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) July 2 data, more than 181 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, representing 54.7 percent of the nation’s population. Over 156 million are considered “fully vaccinated,” the vast majority of those opting for the mRNA vaccines — Pfizer or Moderna.