By DEE-ANN DURBIN-As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Is trav­el safe dur­ing the pan­dem­ic this hol­i­day sea­son?

It de­pends. It can be safe if you’re ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID-19, but of­fi­cials say peo­ple who haven’t got­ten the shots should de­lay trav­el.

Re­gard­less of vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus, all trav­el­ers should keep tak­ing pre­cau­tions like avoid­ing in­door, un­masked crowds, says Dr. Kei­th Ar­mitage, an in­fec­tious dis­ease ex­pert at Case West­ern Re­serve Uni­ver­si­ty.

“The delta vari­ant has re­al­ly brought us back to an ear­li­er time in the pan­dem­ic,” he says.

The U.S. Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion says not to trav­el if you’re sick, or if you test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 and your iso­la­tion pe­ri­od isn’t over yet — even if you’re ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed. Un­vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple who de­cide to trav­el should get a COVID-19 test one to three days be­fore trav­el and three to five days af­ter re­turn­ing.

All trav­el­ers must still wear masks on trains, planes and oth­er in­door pub­lic trans­porta­tion ar­eas, the agency says.

Air­lines say plane cab­ins are low risk since they have good air cir­cu­la­tion and fil­tra­tion. How­ev­er, there is no re­quire­ment for vac­ci­na­tion or test­ing be­fore do­mes­tic flights, and pas­sen­gers can re­move their face masks while eat­ing or drink­ing.

Ho­tels aren’t risky for the vac­ci­nat­ed as long as they wear masks around strangers, Ar­mitage says. More fraught are fam­i­ly gath­er­ings with un­vac­ci­nat­ed in­di­vid­u­als, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those who are old­er or have health prob­lems.

Health ex­perts sug­gest look­ing at the case lev­els and mask­ing rules in the place you are vis­it­ing be­fore you trav­el.