The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance on the recommended Covid-19 isolation period yet again on Tuesday.
The new guidance informs people that if they have access to a Covid-19 test and want to take it, the best approach is to use a rapid test toward the end of their five-day isolation period.
Over the past week, the agency has faced pressure from outside medical experts to include a testing component in its new shortened isolation period.
The updated recommendations do not advise a test for isolated people. However, they offer guidance on how people should respond to a test result if they choose to take one.
The guidance states that if the test is positive, isolated people are advised to continue their isolation period for ten days after the onset of symptoms.
Should the test come back negative, isolated people can end their isolation. However, they are advised to wear a mask around others until day 10.
The guidance updates come after criticism from the most recent appearances by the CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and Dr. Anthony Fauci on CNN. Both doctors were pressed by questions about the change in guidance and the reasons for the changes.
“It really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate,” CDC Director Walensky says on why the CDC shortened the isolation period from 10 days to 5 days if you’re asymptomatic. Our full interview: pic.twitter.com/rO7blPFiPj
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) December 29, 2021
Dr. Rochelle Walensky told CNN’s New Day Anchor Kaitlan Collins, “It really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate.”
The CDC director also told Collins that the FDA does not authorize rapid tests for use after the period of isolation and that the “results are not reliable.”
Walensky went on to say that the “rapid tests have had no bearing on the period of isolation” for individuals who have contracted the COVID-19 virus.
When Dr. Fauci was asked about the changes by CNN’s Dana Bash, he said, “I believe that the CDC soon will be coming out with more clarification of that since it obviously has generated a number of questions about at that five-day period, should you or should you not be testing people? There will be further clarification of that coming very soon.”
