Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on CBS Mornings Friday that the CDC didnβt pivot its recommendations around Covid-19 isolation, but instead provided guidance for those who chose to take an antigen test.
βI remind you, isolation is for people who have had a positive test,β she said, when asked about changes to the isolation guidance. βWe have now dozens of papers that are now on our CDC website that weβve reviewed to update this guidance in the context of the science and the epidemiology of our time.β
She said that it is known that for the one to two days prior to infection and two to three days after symptoms is the time when a person is maximally infectious. By day five, after symptoms, βmost of that infectiousness, that contagiousness is really behind you,β she said.
βThatβs really where we say: Do you have symptoms? If your symptoms are better, youβre safe to go out as long as youβre wearing a mask all the time,β she said. βWhat we heard over the last week is many people were interested in using an antigen test, they had access to the antigen test.β
βSo, we did not pivot our recommendations, what we did is we provided guidance for how youβd use and interpret that antigen test, if you so chose to take the extra step to get one,β she said. βAnd that is, if itβs positive, stay home. And if itβs negative, please continue to wear your mask, because that does not mean youβre no longer infectious.β
Asked if tests would be required before leaving isolation if tests were widely available and if access was no object, Walensky said that βwe require tests for leaving quarantine β quarantine being this period of time after youβve been exposed. What I do want to say is that we have to provide guidance that is, you know, grounded in science, that is grounded in the epidemiology of our current moment in time and implementable at the state and local jurisdictional level.β
βIf they canβt get a test, they should wear a mask,β Walensky said, when asked what people who couldnβt get a test after the five days of isolation should do. βAnd thatβs actually really what our guidance says, isolate for those first five days, after those first five days, make sure youβre feeling better, if youβre feeling better then you really can go out, but you need to go out and you need to be wearing your mask all the time.β
Walensky also addressed criticism around communicating the guidelines, saying βweβre working 24/7, 12,000 people to keep America safe, to update our guidance in the context of really fast moving science and really fast moving epidemiology. We have room, we can improve in our communications of how we convey that science to the American people. We will continue to do so. Weβve gotten some criticism, but weβve also gotten quite a bit of endorsement of these new guidance.β
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