Five Day COVID-19 Isolation May Soon be in the Past

According to a report in the Washington Post, the CDC is reportedly going to change its long-standing self-isolation guidance to prevent COVID-19 transmission. The guidance has been 5 days to self-isolate, but with the updated guidance, people would now no longer need to isolate once they are fever-free for 24 hours and their symptoms are either mild or showing improvement.

The news report said there have been ongoing meetings within the federal agency to make these changes.

In another report by CNN, 2 states, Oregon and California, have already changed their self-isolation guidance and are saying that when people test positive for COVID-19 those individuals are no longer expected to isolate for a specific number of days and they go even a step further and say that for individuals who are not experiencing any symptoms, they do not have to isolate at all.

Although COVID-19 incidence rates were trending upward this winter, the latest statistics from CDC show the numbers are declining. The test positivity rate was 10% from January 28 to February 3, and this was down slightly 0.6% from the previous week. Emergency room visits were at 1.8%, which is down 10.8% from the week before. In terms of hospitalizations and deaths, both indicators were down. Hospitalizations in the same time period were 20,772, and that is down 10% and deaths were 3.1%, which is down 6.1% from the previous week.

The CDC is expected to bring about this new policy in the spring.