The Pennsylvania Department of Health has aligned its COVID-19 quarantine guidelines for fully vaccinated people with those used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to a news release Friday.
People who have received both doses of a two-dose vaccine, or one dose of a single dose vaccine, do not need to quarantine after being exposed to another person with COVID-19 if they meet all the following criteria:
The guidelines do not mean the vaccine is only effective for three months; instead, it's unclear how long immunity from vaccine will last. The CDC is using current information about natural, post-infection immunity and limiting the quarantine guidance to 90 days while additional research is conducted.
This applies to the general public, including businesses, schools and some healthcare settings as a way to alleviate staffing shortages. It does not apply to patients or residents in healthcare settings.
Close contacts who have not been fully vaccinated, or who do not meet all of the criteria listed above, must follow existing quarantine guidance.
The state Department of Health and CDC still discourage any nonessential travel, even for people who are fully vaccinated, because no vaccine is 100 percent effective, and how long the vaccine will protect against COVID-19 is not fully known. New strains of COVID-19 that are still being investigated are also circulating in other states and countries, and the vaccine's effectiveness on these variant strains is not fully known.