WASHINGTON – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will soon update its COVID-19 guidance to remove a recommended minimum five-day isolation period for those on the mend, according to The Washington Post.
The CDC’s current isolation guidance for COVID-19 calls for people who test positive yet show mild and improving symptoms to end isolation after five days if they’re fever-free for 24 hours without help from medication. That recommended isolation period was cut from 10 days to five in December 2021, about two years ago.
In a report citing anonymous CDC officials and an infectious-disease expert, the Post states COVID-positive people with mild and improving symptoms will be advised that they only have to go 24 hours without a fever — also barring the use of medication — before they can end isolation.
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The Post made mention of how CDC officials in internal discussions acknowledged the vastly changed COVID-19 landscape, where a disease that’s killed nearly 1.2 million people in the U.S. is now something most Americans have developed a level of immunity to due to prior infection or vaccination.
“Public health has to be realistic,” said Michael T. Osterholm, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Minnesota. “In making recommendations to the public today, we have to try to get the most out of what people are willing to do. (…) You can be absolutely right in the science and yet accomplish nothing because no one will listen to you.”
Read more details from The Washington Post.
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