Fmr FDA Chief Says Indoor Restrictions Should Be Relaxed: Your Risk Is ‘Substantially Reduced’ When You’re Vaccinated

Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb recently said the U.S. can start lifting indoor mask mandates, and he elaborated on Face the Nation about how vaccinations reduce your risk to a level comparable with the flu.

Gottlieb told CBS News’ Jonn Dickerson Sunday, “Covid won’t disappear. We’re going to have to learn to live with it, but the risk is substantially reduced as a result of vaccination, as a result of immunity that people have acquired through prior infection.”

He said people should make decisions “based on their individual risk” but now “we’re at the point right now where we could start lifting these ordinances and allowing people to resume normal activity.”

“Certainly outdoors, we shouldn’t be putting limits on gatherings anymore. We should be encouraging people to go outside. In the states where prevalence is low, vaccination rates are high, and we have good testing in place and we’re identifying infections. I think we could start lifting these restrictions indoors as well on a broad basis.”

In response to people’s hesitation about easing restrictions, Gottlieb emphasized that if you have been vaccinated, “Your risk is very low from having a bad covid outcome and your risk of getting an asymptomatic infection that you could spread to others is also substantially reduced.”

The risk is substantially reduced from vaccination. And I think you can sort of conclude that probably your risk from covid if you’re fully vaccinated, is comparable, maybe even less, than your risk from flu if you’re fully vaccinated in older individuals. So, you know, you can start resuming normal activity. I think the only residual risk for someone who’s fully vaccinated is could you have asymptomatic infection that you don’t know about? And if you’re around someone who’s immunocompromised, is vulnerable to COVID, you still want to be careful in those circumstances. But you know when you’re in those circumstances and you always want to be careful in those circumstances because you don’t want to pass an infection to someone who can’t defend against it.

You can watch above, via CBS.