MILWAUKEE — U.S. health officials are cutting isolation restrictions for Americans who test positive for the coronavirus and shortening close contacts' time to quarantine.
People with the virus can leave isolation after five days, down from 10 days.
People exposed to the virus can also leave quarantine after five days.
The Centers for Disease Control Prevention also recently released new guidelines that said health workers with COVID-19 no longer need to isolate for 10 days.
The CDC said healthcare workers who are fully vaccinated, including a booster, do not need to quarantine after high-risk exposures.
They can return to work after seven days with a negative test if they are asymptomatic.
If they deal with staffing shortages caused by COVID-19, then isolation time can be cut even further.
CDC officials said the guidance is in keeping with growing evidence that the coronavirus is most infectious two days before and three days after symptom onset. The decision also was influenced by a recent surge in COVID-19 cases, driven by the omicron variant.
Milwaukee County's Chief Health Policy Advisor, Ben Weston, broke down what you should know about how to isolate, quarantine, and test with these new guidelines.
In a tweet posted on Tuesday, Weston shared the CDC's guidelines, but added a few notes for improvement and clarification.
Weston says rapid testing can play a key role in ending isolation, but said we need more supply and access. He also noted HQ masks should be standard, but requires more equity.
According to Weston and the CDC, here is what you should know:
Isolate if you test positive for COVID-19 (everyone, regardless of vaccination status)
Quarantine if you were exposed to someone with COVID-19:
If you are one of these...
If you are one of these...
How do you isolate, quarantine, test with new @CDCgov guidelines? See below-- with a few notes added in red for improvement and clarification.#rapidtest can play key role in ending isolation (need more supply & access). HQ masks should be standard (need more #equity there). pic.twitter.com/4KpUXzwv3D
According to Weston's notes, a high quality mask is not a simple cloth mask. It is a cloth with a filter insert, a disposable procedure mask, KN95, and others.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) expressed support for the CDC's new guidelines on Tuesday.
Secretary-designee Karen Timberlake said the following:
“The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) supports Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommendations [lnks.gd] to shorten isolation and quarantine periods for the general public, given what we know right now about COVID-19 and the Omicron variant. Science shows that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission happens early in the illness, so CDC has shortened the recommended length of isolation from 10 days to five days for people with COVID-19 who do not have any COVID-19 symptoms, followed by five days of wearing a well-fitting mask [lnks.gd] to minimize the risk of infecting others."
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More information: COVID-19 on the Wisconsin DHS website
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Global Coronavirus Tracker: See map here Data from The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.