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Following reports on Wednesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announcing shorter coronavirus-related quarantines, top experts told Fox News the guidelines were reasonable given the resilient public.
The CDC has announced two acceptable quarantine periods, although it noted that the 14-day quarantine previously established was the best way to reduce the risk of the virus spreading. Officials said the quarantine can now end after 10 days without a COVID-19 test if the person reports no symptoms, or after seven days with a negative test result if the person reports no symptoms.
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Americans may find shorter quarantine periods more tolerable, experts say. (iStock)
“The updated information shows that this risk of COVID-19 infection is not evenly distributed in the days following exposure, but rather is highest early on,” wrote Dr Lisa Maragakis , senior director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins Health System. an email declaration.
Maragakis said most of the benefits of quarantine materialize early, within the first 10 days. Another expert from Johns Hopkins University, Dr Gabor Kelen, director of the department of emergency medicine, said the changes would resonate with the resilient American public as well.
“The main reason the CDC has given for changing its guidelines is to increase the number of people who are willing and able to comply with quarantine,” Kelen wrote. “Too many people continue to resist recommended public health measures, for a variety of reasons, and these new guidelines try to strike a balance by allowing certain risks from days 7-10 to 14 so more people comply with quarantine.” . “
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Dr Robert Redfield said on Wednesday that modeling data revealed that 10 days of isolation reduced the likelihood of the virus starting to replicate after that point to around 1%.
“The safest approach for those who are willing and able is to quarantine for the full 14 days, as they could develop symptoms or start spreading the virus at any time during the 14 days after exposure,” Kelen continued.
An expert from the Cleveland Clinic said the CDC’s new guidelines appear to be based on solid clinical data and modeling and should make quarantine more tolerable for people.
“We continue to encourage masking, social distancing and avoidance of groups and travel as we are in the midst of a very strong push that could overwhelm our healthcare system in the very near future,” Dr Alan Taege , an infectious disease specialist at Cleveland Clinic, wrote to Fox News. “We all need to work together to mitigate the effects of this surge until a vaccine is available for everyone.”
Dr Bojana Beric-Stojsic, associate professor of public health and director of the master’s program in public health, School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Fairleigh Dickinson University, also welcomed the new changes.
“I welcome the new guidelines because they are based on recent data and facts, as more is known about the virus, the incubation period and onset of symptoms, the transmission [and] available therapies, etc. », Wrote Beric-Stojsic. She added that while the majority of people will fall into the “safe” space of the CDC model, there will be outliers, as with all statistical manipulation of data. This underlines the need to continue to exercise caution and adhere to mitigation measures, she said.
Mitigation measures include frequent hand washing, the use of masks, social distancing, and avoiding gatherings.
(iStock)
Finally, another Johns Hopkins expert, Justin Lessler, associate professor, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, called the new guidelines “reasonable” but added a counterpoint.
“I would have liked to see special advice for people before they had contact with high-risk individuals or groups if they were infected,” Lessler wrote. “For these situations, I think a symptom-free quarantine of 14 days after potential exposure or 10 days plus a test at the end may even make more sense. For example, if I were to visit an 80 year old relative, I would always do the longest quarantine before my visit. “
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