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ALI KHAN

Fully vaccinated people can gather without masks, CDC says

(AP Photo/Jessica Hill)NEW YORK – 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 CDC is continuing to recommend that fully vaccinated people still wear well-fitted masks, avoid large gatherings, and physically distance themselves from others when out in public. The CDC guidance did not speak to people who may have gained some level of immunity from being infected, and recovering from, the coronavirus. AdOfficials say a person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the last required dose of vaccine. But some people who are fully vaccinated were pleased by Monday's news.

Will the US ever have a national COVID-19 testing strategy?

NEW YORK – As the coronavirus epidemic worsens, U.S. health experts hope Joe Biden's administration will put in place something Donald Trump's has not — a comprehensive national testing strategy. Such a strategy, they say, could systematically check more people for infections and spot surges before they take off. Our strategy has been no strategy,” said Dr. Michael Mina, a Harvard University researcher focused on use of testing to track disease. Some experts say the lack of such a system is one reason for the current national explosion in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Amid complaints about shortages and delays, the federal government began sourcing and shipping key testing supplies to states, beginning with swabs.

Collapsing passengers, CDC missteps and "public health malpractice": The story of the COVID flight from hell

Sharyn Alfonsi: Those early days in March, you know, COVID was starting. In both cases the CDC ordered hundreds of those passengers to quarantine at U.S. military bases. We were told the CDC knew the plane was coming, but didn't make plans to quarantine passengers. The CDC alerted state health departments, but some passengers told us their states never followed up with them and didn't do any contact tracing. The lack of a unified response means nobody knows exactly how many passengers from that flight from hell brought home the coronavirus.

cbsnews.com

CDC allowed over 200 cruise passengers exposed to COVID-19 to fly commercially from Atlanta

Early in the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allowed more than 200 cruise ship passengers who had been exposed or infected with COVID-19 to mingle with unsuspecting travelers in the world's busiest airport and fly on commercial aircraft potentially spreading the infection to their final destinations in 17 states and Canada. They had been aboard the cruise ship Costa Luminosa and had just returned to the United States on a charter flight from Marseilles, France. Passengers told Sharyn Alfonsi that many had COVID symptoms and were ill when they arrived in Atlanta. A 60 Minutes investigation found dozens of the passengers tested positive for COVID just days after returning home. Khan says it was the CDC's responsibility to protect American communities from the spread of COVID-19 by the cruise ship passengers.

cbsnews.com

2nd US virus surge hits plateau, but few experts celebrate

COVID-19 deaths do not move in perfect lockstep with the infection curve, for the simple reason that it can take weeks to get sick and die from the virus. Florida on Thursday reported 253 more deaths, setting its third straight single-day record, while Texas had 322 new fatalities and California had 391. The Associated Press found the seven-day rolling average for new cases plateaued over two weeks in California and decreased in Arizona, Florida and Texas. Those states, along with California, have been pouring large numbers of cases each day into the national tally. ___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education.