Statement from CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH on Today’s MMWR Media Statement For Immediate Release: Friday, July 30, 2021 Contact: Media Relations (404) 639-3286 On July 27th, CDC updated its guidance for fully vaccinated people , recommending that everyone wear a mask in indoor public settings in areas of substantial and high transmission , regardless of vaccination status. This decision was made with the data and science available to CDC at the time, including a valuable public health partnership resulting in rapid receipt and review of unpublished data. Today, some of those data were published in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) , demonstrating that Delta infection resulted in similarly high SARS-CoV-2 viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated people. High viral loads suggest an increased risk of transmission and raised concern that, unlike with other variants, vaccinated people infected with Delta can transmit the...