The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) removed COVID-19 guidance for the upcoming holiday season from its website on Monday.
The page, which was posted over the weekend, recommended virtual gatherings, increasing ventilation at indoor meeting by opening windows or gathering outdoors.
As of Tuesday morning, the page on the CDC website just provides links to information about vaccination and booster shots.
The agency told The Hill that the guidelines were outdated and had been uploaded in error with new recommendations to be posted in the coming weeks.
Health officials in the U.S. still have not given Americans clear guidance for the rapidly approaching holiday season, with Dr Anthony Fauci flip-flopping on whether or not people can gather with their families for Christmas.
The CDC removed holiday travel guidelines posted over the weekend from its website, saying they were outdated and published in error. The guidelines recommended virtual gatherings. Pictured: A man wears a mask while traveling at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, last holiday season on December 23
Dr Anthony Fauci (pictured) said on Sunday that it was ‘too soon’ to say whether Americans can gather for Christmas, but said on Monday he said his comments were ‘misinterpreted,’ and that he would be spending Christmas with his family
‘[The page] doesn’t reflect the CDC’s guidance ahead of this upcoming holiday season,’ the federal health agency told The Hill.
The guidelines are from last year, before COVID-19 vaccines had been distributed, according to the CDC.
Federal officials did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
This year, with a majority of Americans being fully vaccinated, it is assumed traveling and gathering would be safer.
The guidelines did not account for the vaccine, though, instead still telling people to celebrate virtually.
‘Attending gatherings to celebrate events and holidays increases your risk of getting and spreading COVID-19. The safest way to celebrate is virtually, with people who live with you, or outside and at least six feet apart from others,’ the now removed page said.
It was also recommended for people to increase ventilation at holiday gatherings using fans and open windows.
‘If celebrating indoors, bring in fresh air by opening windows and doors, if possible. You can use a window fan in one of the open windows to blow air out of the window. This will pull fresh air in through the other open windows,’ it said.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said over the weekend that he could not yet make any recommendations for the next few months.
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases appeared of CBS’ Face of the Nation of Sunday, and said the focus should be on vaccination and keeping cases down in the coming weeks.
‘We’ve just got to concentrate on continuing to get those numbers down and not try to jump ahead by weeks or months and say what we’re going to do at a particular time,’ he said.
‘Let’s focus like a laser on continuing to get those cases down.
‘And we can do it by people getting vaccinated and also in the situation where boosters are appropriate to get people boosted.’
He said on Monday, though, that his comments from the weekend were misinterpreted.
Fauci told CNN that he encourages people to meet with their loved ones if possible, but recommends that Americans take steps now to make sure they are safe when they do so.
‘The best way to assure that we’ll be in good shape as we get into the winter would be to get more and more people vaccinated,’ Fauci said.
‘That was misinterpreted as my saying we can’t spend Christmas with our families, which was absolutely not the case.
‘I will be spending Christmas with my family, I encourage people, particularly the vaccinated people who are protected, to have a good, normal Christmas with your family.’
Currently, 65 percent of Americans have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 56 percent are fully vaccinated, CDC data show.
More than five million Americans have also received a booster dose of the vaccine, which recently became available for people over the age of 65, who are immunocompromised or at high-risk due to underlying conditions or their jobs,
Cases are falling as well, with the nation recording about 100,000 new cases per da, data from Johns Hopkins show.
This is a far cry from the more than 170,000 per day being recorded at some points in mid-September.