Per Yahoo news: New data suggests the CDC’s C
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New data suggests the CDC’s COVID guidance to isolate for 5 days after testing positive is wrong. You should follow Joe Biden’s example instead
Grady McGregor
Wed, July 27, 2022 at 3:12 AM·3 min read
Five days. That’s how long you should isolate after testing positive for COVID before going back to normal life (while wearing a mask in public for five more days), according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The CDC’s five-day quarantine policy for COVID cases is not law, but families, human resource departments, schools, and other institutions across the country depend on its advice for deciding how to return to normal life after a COVID infection.
Scientists have questioned the scientific rationale behind the five-day quarantine policy since the CDC introduced it last December. And now, critics of the policy have more data to back up their claims.
In two new preprints, scientists found that people infected with COVID-19 remained infectious after five days. One from the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston showed that one-quarter of COVID patients may still be infectious eight days after first testing positive.
How long should you isolate after testing positive for COVID?
Extending the isolation period from five to ten days could be more safe, according to the study.
“There is not data to support five days or anything shorter than ten days [of isolation],” Amy Barczak, a physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital Infectious Disease Division, who contributed research to the study, tells Nature.
Some scientists advise that people should stop quarantining only once they test negative using at-home, rapid antigen tests (RATs) rather than relying on the CDC's five-day rule.
"There’s still all of these things that we’re not exactly sure about, but if I had to sum it up in one very concise message, it would be if you’re antigen positive, you shouldn't go out and interact closely with people who you don’t want to be infected,” says Emily Bruce, a microbiologist and molecular geneticist at the University of Vermont in Burlington, tells Nature.