It’s been a year since grocery shopping changed from an everyday task to a complicated task. While the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in many supermarkets is on the rise in your forest neck, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has announced new guidelines for protecting yourself and others.
“Based on what we know about COVID-19 vaccines, people who are fully vaccinated can start doing things they stopped doing because of the pandemic,” the CDC says.
Here’s everything you need to know about grocery stores amid vaccination, including the latest CDC safety guidelines. For more information on how to keep yourself safe against the new coronavirus, here are the one-vitamin doctors everyone is asking to take now.
Some rules are the same:
Even if you are fully vaccinated, the CDC still recommends staying 6 meters away from others when you are in public. Continue to avoid overcrowding while shopping, and use the stickers on the floor in check-out lines to maintain a safe distance.
As you already know, you do not have to wash food in the store. However, the use of hand sanitizer and washing your hands is still necessary. To help you get through the aisles, we put together a handy list of the germinal parts of the grocery store.
Most mask mandates remain in force, and you must still wear a mask in public, even if, according to the CDC, you have been completely vaccinated. It is impossible to know who else has been vaccinated around you, but wearing a mask while shopping helps everyone safely.
Related: This Grocery Store Strikes Back Against Its COVID-19 Policy
And some rules that differ:
Texas and Mississippi recently lifted their state mask mandates and placed the decision on whether or not to require a mask in the hands of businesses. As of March 10, some grocery stores are in Lonestar State not required customers to wear a mask: HEB, Central Market and Albertsons. At the same time, all three chains encouraging customers to continue to wear one.
The CDC recently published new research showing that mask mandates slow down the spread of the virus. “We’ve seen this movie before: when preventative measures like mask mandates are rolled back, things go up,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said in a March 5 White House newsletter.
Fully vaccinated from up to two households can gather indoors without wearing a mask. However, you must first consider whether someone is at risk of serious illness due to COVID-19.
According to Yale Medicine, both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are 95% effective in preventing symptomatic infection. If you are fully vaccinated, a trip to the grocery store can feel significantly less daunting.
Related: 10 Safety Tips for Grocery Stores from a Health Expert
In November, 11 grocery stores partnered with the federal government to distribute the COVID-19 vaccines to hundreds of thousands of Americans. Six chains are already offering vaccines by January, and distribution efforts will continue to expand in March. Walmart is even instituting vaccination at some of its locations in 18 states.
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