GREENSBORO, N.C. — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released new holiday guidelines as we get closer to the holiday season. This year's guidelines look similar to those from the last year.
The CDC's top recommendation for a safe holiday season is to hold virtual celebrations, something many are familiar with after last year.
Masks are recommended inside if you're surrounded by a big group of people and the CDC suggests holding off on traveling unless you're fully vaccinated.
We spoke with Cone Health's infectious disease expert Dr. Jeffrey Hatcher about these familiar guidelines.
"If you look at last years guidelines and this year's guidelines you'll see a lot of similarities. There are some differences in terms of people who are not vaccinated, there are recommendations about getting tested after you travel and before you travel. But things are very similar in terms of smaller groups, and having gatherings outside if you can."
Although these guidelines have been put out by the CDC, Dr. Anthony Fauci said it's still too early to know if all of those will be necessary by the start of the holidays.
""It's just too soon to tell," he said. "We just have to concentrate on continuing to get those numbers down, and not try to jump ahead by weeks and months and say what we're going to do at a particular time. Let's focus like a laser on getting those numbers down and we can do it."
According to the CDC's website, as of Friday, October 1, there were 112,317 new cases of COVID-19 reported across the nation.
To go over any of the recommendations from the CDC, just click here.