CDC Announces New Mask Guidance for Fully Vaccinated Individuals

By Jennifer Suberlak, Esq., San Diego SHRM VP of Legislation

CDC Announces New Mask Guidance for Fully Vaccinated Individuals

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”), fully vaccinated individuals can resume pre-pandemic activities, whether indoors or outdoors, without wearing a mask or physically distancing—unless federal, state, or local laws or workplace guidance require otherwise. Currently, the California Department of Public Health, Cal/OSHA, and the San Diego Department of Health & Human Services mandate the use of face coverings when indoors, regardless of vaccination status. Therefore, San Diego employers must continue to enforce face covering requirements in the workplace for the time being.

The CDC’s new rules will likely prompt similar mask guidance from state and local authorities in the coming weeks.

Notably, Cal/OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (“ETS”) is set to expire on May 31, 2021. The ETS requires employers to, among other things, maintain a written COVID-19 prevention program, create procedures for responding to positive cases in the workplace, train employees about protective measures, ensure social distancing and mask wearing, and exclude exposed employees from the workplace. Cal/OSHA has recently proposed revisions to the ETS to account for the workplace changes brought on by wide scale vaccination. Key proposed changes to the ETS include:

• Clarification that the ETS does not apply to employees working remotely from a location of their choice;
• Redefining “close contact” to exclude people wearing respirators under a respiratory protection program;
• Focusing on an “exposed group” of workers where a COVID-19 case was present during the high-risk exposure period, instead of an “exposed workplace”;
• Excluding from the definition of “face covering” “a scarf, ski mask, balaclava, bandana, turtleneck, collar, or single layer of fabric”;
• Requiring exposure notices when the employer knows or should know about a COVID-19 case;
• Relaxed social distancing requirements for fully vaccinated employees; and
• Eliminating the requirement to exclude fully vaccinated employees from the workplace after a “close contact.”

The Cal/OSHA Standards Board is scheduled to consider the proposed changes at its May 20, 2021 meeting. The Board will likely consider amending some of the proposed changes in light of the CDC’s updated mask guidance.