#16,484
Just over a week ago, the CDC unveiled new Shortened COVID Quarantine & Isolation Times For General Public, designed to get people back to work or school faster, in hopes of creating less absenteeism during the ongoing Omicron wave of COVID.
It was controversial, in that it eliminated the requirement for a negative test before returning to work, instead recommending for most cases: Isolation for 5 days followed by wearing a well-fitting mask will minimize the risk of spreading the virus to others.
This assumed the person was asymptomatic or `improving' after 5 days, saying that `most people' are at their most contagious just before, and for a few days after, symptoms appeared. As I said last week, it wasn't ideal, but it was understandable if the primary goal is to keep essential services running.
Yesterday the CDC released new, and frankly, confusing guidance that `suggests' getting a test - assuming that one is a available - after `about 5 days' of isolation, but doesn't require it.
I suspect this wording has as much to do with the availability (or expected lack, thereof) of home test kits, as it does anything else.
Here is the link to the newly revised Quarantine and Isolation guidance, which is divided into 12 subsections (covering a variety of scenarios), including:
Quarantine vs. Isolation
Quarantine
Who does not need to quarantine
Who should quarantine?
What to do for quarantine
Quarantine in high-risk congregate settings
What to do for isolation
Ending isolation for people who had COVID-19 and had symptoms
Ending isolation for people who tested positive for COVID-19 but had no symptoms
Ending isolation for people who were severely ill with COVID-19 or have a weakened immune system (immunocompromised)
Isolation in high-risk congregate settings
Recommendations for Specific Settings
These recommendations do not apply to healthcare professionals. For guidance specific to these settings, see
- Healthcare professionals: Interim Guidance for Managing Healthcare Personnel with SARS-CoV-2 Infection or Exposure to SARS-CoV-2
- Patients, residents, and visitors to healthcare settings: Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Healthcare Personnel During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic
Additional setting-specific guidance and recommendations are available.
- These recommendations on quarantine and isolation do apply to K-12 School settings. Additional guidance is available here: Overview of COVID-19 Quarantine for K-12 Schools
- Travelers: Travel information and recommendations
- Congregate facilities and other settings: guidance pages for community, work, and school settings
If a camel is truly a horse designed by a committee, then this document undoubtedly has a lot of fingerprints on it. While it would be easy to throw stones, sometimes there are no simple solutions to a complex problem, like a pandemic entering its 3rd year.
This is obviously a compromise, based a need to keep society running, a lack of testing resources, the futility of stopping community transmission of Omicron, and the impossibility of creating a one-size-fits-all set of guidelines.
Again, not ideal, but `ideal' left the station a long time ago. Hopefully most people will use these general guidelines, and a dose of common sense, and stay home until they honestly think they are safe to return to work or school.
