People who have been confirmed with mild to moderate COVID-19 can abandon their isolation without receiving a negative test, according to the recently revised guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Increasing evidence shows that most people are no longer infectious 10 days after they start having symptoms of COVID-19. As a result, the CDC is discouraging people from getting tested a second time after recovering.
“For most people with COVID-19 disease, isolation and precautions can generally be discontinued 10 days after the onset of symptoms and resolution of fever for at least 24 hours, without the use of medications to reduce fever and with the improvement of other symptoms, “he added. The CDC says.
For people who tested positive but have no symptoms, “Isolation and other precautions can be discontinued 10 days after the date of your first SARS-CoV-2 RNA positive RT-PCR test.”
Dr. Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center, said many doctors have felt for months that a negative test to end isolation was not a practical solution.
“What we had seen clinically aligns with these new guidelines, at least for the vast majority of people,” he told NBC News. “It is one of those cases where the CDC is now reaching the doctor.”
There are exceptions to the 10-day guide, including people with compromised immune systems that can be infectious for a longer period of time.
“For the average immunocompetent person, I think we can feel pretty confident that after 10 days, they are no longer contagious,” Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, told NBC News.
In a briefing with reporters last week, Brett Giroir, assistant secretary of health for the Department of Health and Human Services, said a required negative test after a confirmed infection was due to early outbreaks on cruise ships where people were quarantined and they were attentive. Salt.
“That is no longer necessary, and it is medically unnecessary,” he said.
The CDC also notes that virus fragments have been found in patients up to three months after disease onset, although these viruses have not been shown to be capable of transmitting the disease.
“It could be positive with the PCR test long after it is no longer infectious,” Giroir said during the Health and Human Services briefing on July 14. Some people were tested four to six times. You don’t need to be retested unless you’re seriously ill or immunosuppressed, where you could kill the virus longer. “
A PCR or polymerase chain reaction test detects the genetic material of the coronavirus that is present when the virus is active. Doctors generally collect a nasal or throat specimen from someone with a long nasopharyngeal swab.
Joseph Petrosino, president of virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, said: “I think one of the good things about the CDC recommendation was that they collected a lot of data from many different places around the world that shows that many of these Long-term removal programs are not associated with new infections or virus transmission. “
Schaffner said it will take time for these recommendations to be widely adopted, but once they do, they will have a modest effect on the backlog of tests that are affecting the U.S. healthcare system.
“Our testing circumstances in the United States are not yet close to what they need to be,” he said. “The question is how well do the test resources meet the needs of our country? And in that sense, C is less at best. “
“Anything we can do to help that, the better,” he added.
The 10-day recommendation is specifically for those who test positive for the coronavirus and have been asked to isolate themselves. It does not apply to people who need to be quarantined to prevent the virus from spreading. The incubation period for the virus is 14 days, health experts say, so anyone who has been exposed to the virus would need to be quarantined to see if they get sick.
Most infected people develop symptoms after about five days, although about 20 to 40 percent who are infected do not develop any symptoms.
