Dr. Schaffner: Vaccinated Should Wear Masks During Family Christmas Gatherings

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University, said Thursday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that vaccinated people should wear masks around their families at Christmas gatherings to combat the Omicron variant.

Anchor Alisyn Camerota asked, “We need help understanding what to do about Omicron, which is fast becoming a dominant variant. So if Omicron is much more transmissible, is less severe than previous variants, at the moment, we think, what does that mean for Christmas? Should we, can we be get together with our vaccinated loved ones? Or do you not recommend that?”

Schaffner said, “Alisyn, I would recommend we hang our stockings with care. I think we have to be careful. If we’re all going to get together, we should all be vaccinated and preferentially boosted. We should wear our masks if we’re uncertain, and another thing we could do is we could all get tested the morning of our getting together. We did that at our house over Thanksgiving because we had a member who had a very serious condition that put them at risk of very severe disease should they get infected. We were all negative. It worked out just fine.”

He added, “I would say if you’re going to any group event indoors, whether vaccinated or not, please wear your mask. Yes, I join the chorus of everyone saying vaccination, vaccination, vaccination.”

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