Overnight Health Care: After a brutal year, is the US getting close to normal? |

Welcome to Monday’s Overnight Health Care. If you watched the Oprah interview last night, did you notice all those drug ads? Because the British certainly did, as did some members of Congress. 

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President BidenJoe BidenLawmakers, activists remember civil rights icons to mark ‘Bloody Sunday’ Fauci predicts high schoolers will receive coronavirus vaccinations this fall Biden nominates female generals whose promotions were reportedly delayed under Trump MORE will address the country in prime time to mark the one year anniversary of COVID-19 restrictions. New CDC guidelines outline what the agency thinks is safe for people to do once they’ve been vaccinated. But when will everything be “normal” again? Depends on who you ask.

We’ll start with the issue of normality:

After a brutal year, is the US getting close to normal? Or at least normal-ish?

New federal guidelines released Monday saying it is safe for fully vaccinated people to gather indoors with each other without masks is adding hope that a return to normality — or something close to it — might be getting closer as the nation hits one year in a locked-down state.

No one knows exactly when it will be normal again — if ever, given how the coronavirus pandemic has elevated concerns about contagious diseases in general.

There’s also quite a bit of uncertainty going forward, especially as variants of the virus continue to circulate.

Still, experts are more optimistic than they have been since the pandemic began, as political leaders plot a path forward, movie theaters in New York reopen and the Chicago Cubs prepare to welcome fans to Wrigley Field for Opening Day — albeit at a 20 percent capacity.

“I think we’re on a trajectory to be in really good shape this summer, certainly in the July timeframe,” said Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research. 

A couple possible timeframes:

Read more here. 

CDC says it’s safe for vaccinated people to gather indoors

Long-awaited guidance from federal health officials on Monday suggested it is safe for vaccinated people to gather together indoors, offering a sneak peek into the post-COVID future.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who are two weeks past their final shot (or the only shot, if it’s from Johnson & Johnson) may visit indoors with each other without masks, as well as with unvaccinated members of a single household, at low risk of severe disease.

The CDC also recommends vaccinated individuals do not need to quarantine or get tested if they come into contact with someone with COVID-19 and do not develop symptoms.

But the agency did not update its travel guidance, so it is still trying to discourage people from traveling long distances for family visits even if everyone is vaccinated. 

“Every time we have a surge in travel, we have a surge in cases in this country,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters Monday.

The U.S. is still in the midst of a pandemic, and even though cases have been declining on average, the country is averaging close to 60,000 new infections a day.

“Our guidance must balance the risk to people who have been…