The image is from Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that people who test positive for COVID-19 only need to be isolated for five days if their symptoms have stopped. The agency said in a statement that the change to isolation guidelines from 10 days to five is based on data showing people with COVID-19 are most likely to be contagious to others.
People should wear a mask for five more days after leaving isolation.
The CDC said Monday that people who haven't received a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine but received their second dose six months ago, or who received a Johnson & Johnson vaccine two months ago, should be on a five-day quark. Previously, people who were fully vaccine-vaccinated didn't need to be quark if they had exposure to someone with the disease.
The CDC said last week that health care workers only need to be isolated for seven days if they test positive for the COVID-19 virus, if they have a negative test on the seventh day. The United Kingdom shortened its recommended isolation period to seven days if people have negative tests on the sixth and seventh days.
The new guidelines from the CDC for the general public in the United States do not include a recommendation to take a test at the end of the five-day isolation period.
In many places, more people are testing positive for the virus each day than ever before, because of the omicron variant. The CDC faced pressure from various industries to shorten the isolation period in order to reduce staffing shortages from people testing positive and missing ten days of work.
Public health experts say a shorter isolation period is supported by research. If people are going to return to everyday activities, they should be recovered. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and an associate dean at the School of Public Health at Brown University, told The New York Times that she doesn't want to see this used as an excuse to force people to come back.
