HHS secretary: 'You get to return to a more normal lifestyle' if vaccinated

Xavier Becerra.
(Image credit: Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images)

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra says, quite pointedly, that Americans who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 "get to return to a more normal lifestyle." If you're not vaccinated, he added during his appearance on CBS This Morning on Tuesday, you're both "a danger" to others and "in danger" from the virus yourself, so "get vaccinated."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of course, has issued guidance allowing vaccinated people to travel and gather indoors and unmasked with each other, but the federal government has still been accused of underselling the vaccines, prompting calls for its messaging to more directly tout — as Becerra put it — a "normal lifestyle" as a reward for getting the shots.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.