NEW YORK -- New U.S. guidance issued Friday has added travel to the activities that vaccinated Americans can safely enjoy again.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance to say fully vaccinated people can travel within the U.S. without getting tested for the coronavirus or going into quarantine afterward.
Still, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky urged caution and said she would "advocate against general travel overall" given the rising number of infections.
"If you are vaccinated, it is lower-risk," she said.
Some public health experts were surprised by Friday's announcement and expressed concern that the government was sending confusing signals.
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"It's a mix of 'please don't travel' at the same time this is easing travel for a subset of people," said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, professor of public health research and medicine at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.
"I think it's very confusing and goes counter to the message we heard earlier this week to 'stay put,' 'hold on,' 'be patient.' And that worries me. Public health messaging has to be very clear, very consistent, and it has to be very simple," El-Sadr said.
Walensky seemed to acknowledge the apparent mixed messaging during a news conference Friday. "The science shows us that getting fully vaccinated allows you to do more things safely, and it's important for us to provide that guidance even in the context of rising cases," she said.
According to data through Thursday from Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. is averaging 66,000 daily new cases this past week, up from 55,000 two weeks ago.
The travel industry welcomed the new guidance, hoping it might be the beginning of a turn of fortune for airlines, hotels and tourist destinations, which have suffered mounting losses for more than a year.
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"As travel comes back, U.S. jobs come back," said Roger Dow, chief executive of the U.S. Travel Association.
But federal officials remained adamant that people who have not been fully vaccinated should not travel at all, a position widely supported by public health experts.
According to the CDC, more than 100 million people in the U.S. -- or about 30% of the population -- have received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two doses given a few weeks apart, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is a single shot.
The U.S. has administered more doses than any other nation, though it ranks seventh in terms of the percentage of the population with at least one dose, according to Bloomberg News' Vaccine Tracker.
Outside a San Francisco convention center, Kara Roche, a consultant with a tech company, welcomed the news on traveling after getting her second Pfizer shot.
"I'm thrilled that this summer there might be opportunities for us to go somewhere," she said.
Roche said she normally goes overseas on vacation at least twice a year. Since the pandemic started, she's gone only to Utah and Texas for work.
"I'll still be cautious. I'm not looking to go on a cruise. I'm not looking to be in mass crowds and I'll probably not go overseas," she said. "But absolutely, if it's open and the CDC says we can do it, I'm looking forward to going somewhere in the States."
If unvaccinated people travel, the CDC says they should get tested one to three days before the trip and three to five days after. And they should stay home and quarantine for seven days after travel, even if their covid-19 test is negative, the agency says.
The new guidance says:
• Fully vaccinated people can travel within the U.S. without getting tested or quarantining. People should still wear a mask, socially distance and avoid crowds, the agency says.
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• For international travel, the agency says vaccinated people do not need to get a test before leaving, unless the destination country requires it.
• For travelers coming into the U.S., vaccinated people should still get a negative test before boarding a flight and be tested three to five days after arrival. They do not need to quarantine. The agency noted the potential introduction of virus variants and differences in vaccine coverage around the world for the cautious guidance on overseas travel.
Already, air travel in the United States has been picking back up. Although it remains down by nearly half from a year ago, more than 1 million travelers a day have been going through U.S. airports in recent weeks.
"I was surprised that our flight was kind of full," Telva Aguilar said after arriving Friday at Oakland airport from Southern California to visit her grandchildren. She works in a hospital and has been vaccinated, but said she is still being cautious.
Airlines do not require covid-19 tests or proof of vaccination for travel in the U.S., though a few states have testing or quarantine rules for travelers.
Despite getting his second shot Friday, Mick Peacock, a fire inspector in San Francisco, isn't planning to travel anytime soon. If he and his wife do go anywhere this year, he said they would rent an RV and hit the road.
"I think we all want a beach holiday right now, but I don't think it's safe," he said. "I don't look at the numbers anymore, because we've all been looking at those numbers too long."
SHOT AND A DOUGHNUT
So few people showed up for covid-19 vaccinations in one county in North Carolina that hospitals there now allow anyone 16 or older to get a shot, regardless of where they live. Get a shot, get a free doughnut, the governor said.
Alabama, which has the nation's lowest vaccination rate and a county where only 7% of residents are fully vaccinated, opened a campaign to convince people the shots are safe. Doctors and pastors joined the effort.
On the national level, the Biden administration this week started a "We Can Do This" campaign to encourage holdouts to get vaccinated against the virus that has claimed more than 554,000 lives in the U.S.
The race is on to vaccinate as many people as possible, but a significant number of Americans are so far reluctant to get the shots, even in places where they are plentiful. Twenty-five percent of Americans say they probably or definitely will not get vaccinated, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
They are leery about possible side effects. They tend to be Republican, and they are usually younger and less susceptible to becoming critically ill or dying if they catch covid-19.
There's been a slight shift, though, since the first weeks of the nation's largest-ever vaccination campaign, which began in mid-December. An AP-NORC poll conducted in late January showed that 67% of adult Americans were willing to get vaccinated or had already received at least one shot. Now that figure has climbed to 75%.
That, experts say, moves the nation closer to herd immunity, which occurs when enough people have immunity, either from vaccination or past infection, to stop uncontrolled spread of a disease.
Anywhere from 75% to 85% of the total population -- including children, who are not currently getting the shots -- should be vaccinated to reach herd immunity, said Ali Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health.
Andrea Richmond, a 26-year-old freelance web coder in Atlanta, is among those whose reluctance is easing. A few weeks ago, she was leaning toward not getting the shot. Possible long-term effects worried her. She knew that an H1N1 vaccine used years ago in Europe increased risk of narcolepsy.
Then her sister got vaccinated with no ill effects. Richmond's friends' opinions also changed. "They went from, 'I'm not trusting this' to 'I'm all vaxxed up, let's go out!'"
Her mother, a cancer survivor, with whom Richmond lives, is so keen for her daughter to get vaccinated that she signed her up online for a jab. "I'll probably end up taking it," Richmond said. "I guess it's my civic duty."
But some remain steadfastly opposed.
"I think I only had the flu once," said Lori Mansour, 67, who lives near Rockford, Ill. "So I think I'll take my chances."
CALIFORNIA EASING
California on Friday cleared the way for people to attend indoor concerts, theater performances and NBA games for the first time in more than a year as the rate of people testing positive in the state nears a record low.
State officials won't require testing or proof of vaccination for some of those events, but they do limit the number of people allowed to attend. Events that do require testing and vaccinations will be allowed to have more paying customers than those that don't. Only people who live in California can attend these live performances.
The rules are different for private indoor gatherings, including weddings, meetings and conferences. Those are to be allowed only if all guests test negative at least 72 hours in advance or show proof of full vaccination. Much of the enforcement burden is put on business owners and operators.
"Allowing some of these activities and opportunities to vaccinated individuals is an incentive," said Dee Dee Myers, director of the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development. "If they can return to some of their favorite activities because they're vaccinated, then hopefully a few more people will go and get vaccinated."
The new rules seem to nudge California toward a system of vaccine verification, a hotly debated issue across the country. New York offers a digital pass that residents can use to show proof of vaccination or a negative test that is accepted at major entertainment venues. But Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order Friday banning businesses from requiring "vaccine passports."
President Joe Biden's administration has said the federal government won't come up with a national vaccine passport app, leaving that to the private sector. But the federal government is devising regulations for how and when such passports can be used.
MORE DOSES IN ARMS
It's taking some effort and some patience. But just as eligibility is opening to millions of people across the U.S. after months of cutthroat competition to find shots, vaccines are starting to stream into people's arms.
Becky Jacobsen, 41, was ready to drive as long as an hour as soon as Connecticut made all adults eligible Thursday. A friend stayed up late to snatch an appointment at a CVS Health Corp. drugstore just 6 miles from Jacobsen's home in Windsor.
"Another friend is looking for my husband," the mother of five said by phone as children shouted in the background. "It's distance-learning day, and I've got to focus on making sure the kids aren't on YouTube when they're supposed to be on Google Classroom."
States are offering shots to millions of people who want to return to life as it was before covid, and officials in charge are reporting that the campaign is rounding into form.
The progress offers hope that most adults will be vaccinated this summer before attention shifts to children. Positive data from partners Pfizer and BioNTech this week could position 12- to 15-year-olds for a shot before the next school year.
Nearly half of U.S. states will have opened vaccination to everyone 16 and older by the end of this week. That will rise to about three-quarters, or 35 states, by the end of next week.
Millions more doses are being distributed each week. Moderna and Pfizer are each on track to deliver enough shots to vaccinate 100 million people in the U.S. by the end of May, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker.
While some 15 million Johnson & Johnson shots were affected by a production problem in Baltimore, that's not expected to have an effect on Biden's expectation that the U.S. will have enough vaccine for all adults in May, according to people familiar with the matter. Likewise, delays in the U.S. clearance of AstraZeneca's vaccine, which is still the subject of side-effect concerns, probably won't affect the U.S. campaign.
The floodgates are beginning to open in Los Angeles, where residents have begged, borrowed and stolen to get appointments. Some people expressed surprise on social media about how simple it's become.
"I just made an appointment for Wed.," Matt Oswalt, a comedy writer and photographer, wrote on Twitter this week. "Took 2 minutes to book it. Easy, they have tons of slots open."
Not everyone is having as much luck. Judith Romano from Ashland, Mass., got her first of two Pfizer shots Thursday at a Boston clinic, but said her husband, a grocery clerk in his late 50s, has still been unable to schedule one through the state sign-up system.
"He's been trying, trying, trying trying," she said. "People say, 'Oh, you've got to get on at like 4 a.m. And just wait.' But that's silly. Why should you have to do that?"
Each time her husband fails to get a slot, "he curses."
Information for this article was contributed by Candice Choi, Olga R. Rodriguez, Terry Chea, Dave Koenig, Carla K. Johnson, Andrew Selsky, Hannah Fingerhut, Christopher Weber, Bryan Anderson, Jay Reeves, Adam Beam and Janie Har of The Associated Press; by Roni Caryn Rabin of The New York Times; and by Angelica LaVito of Bloomberg News (WPNS).