The Washington Post

Only 2 U.S. states report covid increases, CDC says

Covid Surge - Washington, DC

Caucasian woman tired from working overtime, She has eyestrain from looking at the computer screen for a long time, Blue light is harmful to the eyes.

Contributor

Long Covid and Intimacy

Karnataka makes mask mandatory for people aged 60, Bangalore, India - 19 Dec 2023

COVID Cases Spike Across The U.S.

Staff

Transgender Treatment Florida

Long Covid Liza Fisher

For The Washington Post

INDONESIA-HEALTH-COVID-VACCINATION

Covid and flu vaccinations

Coronavirus Pandemic 2021 California

Seniors made up 63 percent of covid hospitalizations earlier this year

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director, Dr. Mandy Cohen, in Atlanta

Shortage Of COVID Vaccines For Kids

Photographer

Biden COVID Tests

Last days of DC Covid Center

Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Ask Amy: My boyfriend just confessed he’s almost $20,000 in debt

Miss Manners: Is it inappropriate to reach out to old girlfriends?

Carolyn Hax: Longtime friend won’t forgive being last-minute canceled for a guy

In photos: At least 39 dead as historic flooding hits southern Brazil

Sea level rise brings new era of dangerous flooding

Michael Cohen keeps broadcasting despite being a witness

Trump Media auditor charged by SEC with ‘massive fraud’

Google’s empire is massive. A judge will soon rule if it’s a monopoly.

Five tech products we actually like

The new cure-all for vacation excess: the IV drip 

What’s the best bus to New York? We tested 5 for comfort and value.

Adaptive equipment is making national parks more inclusive

The New York Times, alone in its outrage over access to Biden

The ‘Access Hollywood’ video cemented Trump’s air of invincibility

Stephen A. Smith would like even more of your attention

In a pinch, the Nationals finally find some offense

Is Pastis as good as our food critic thought? He sent spies to find out.

The Capitals, a team in transition, know what they want this offseason

Strangers help Sesame Street puppeteer after heirloom necklace was stolen

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

The Post endorses April McClain Delaney and Tom Royals for Maryland’s 6th District

On Press Freedom Day, little to celebrate for Hong Kong’s journalists

Young Georgians want to be part of Europe. Their government is in the way.

Confident of victory over Ukraine, Russia exhibits Western war trophies

Two women are seeking Mexico’s presidency. But the race is about a man.

Hamas in Cairo for hostage talks as Israel briefs aid agencies on Rafah

Biden confronts campus protests; Trump hedges on accepting election results

Kristi Noem just won’t stop talking about killing her dog

Noem’s dog-killing isn’t popular, though Trump supporters are divided

Patrick Sison

Americans who test positive for the coronavirus no longer need to routinely stay home from work and school for five days under new guidance planned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency is loosening its covid isolation recommendations for the first time since 2021 to align it with guidance on how to avoid transmitting flu and RSV, according to four agency officials and an expert familiar with the discussions.

CDC officials acknowledged in internal discussions and in a briefing last week with state health officials how much the covid-19 landscape has changed since the virus emerged four years ago, killing nearly 1.2 million people in the United States and shuttering businesses and schools. The new reality — with <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7222a3.htm#:~:text=By%20the%20third%20quarter%20of,%3B%2047.7%25%20had%20hybrid%20immunity." target=_blank>most people having developed a level of immunity </a>to the virus because of prior infection or vaccination — warrants a shift to a more practical approach, experts and health officials say.

“Public health has to be realistic,” said Michael T. Osterholm, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Minnesota. “In making recommendations to the public today, we have to try to get the most out of what people are willing to do. … You can be absolutely right in the science and yet accomplish nothing because no one will listen to you.”

Drea Cornejo

The CDC plans to recommend that people who test positive for the coronavirus use clinical symptoms to determine when to end isolation. Under the new approach, people would no longer need to stay home if they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the aid of medication and their symptoms are mild and improving, according to three agency officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.

Here is the current CDC guidance on isolation and precautions for people with covid-19

The federal recommendations follow similar moves by <a href="https://www.oregon.gov/oha/covid19/pages/index.aspx#:~:text=If%20you%20have%20COVID%2D19,COVID%2D19%20symptoms%20are%20improving." target=_blank>Oregon</a> and <a href="https://covid19.ca.gov/isolation/#guidelines" target=_blank>California</a>. The White House has yet to sign off on the guidance that the agency is expected to release in April for public feedback, officials said. One agency official said the timing could “move around a bit” until the guidance is finalized.

Work on revising isolation guidance has been underway since last August but was paused in the fall as covid cases rose. CDC director Mandy Cohen sent staff a memo in January that listed “Pan-resp guidance-April” as a bullet point for the agency’s 2024 priorities.

Officials said they recognized the need to give the public more practical guidelines for covid-19, acknowledging that few people are following isolation guidance that hasn’t been updated since December 2021. Back then, health officials cut the recommended isolation period for people with asymptomatic <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2" target=_blank>coronavirus</a> from 10 days to five because they worried <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/12/28/cdc-isolation-guidelines-rationale/" target=_blank>essential services would be hobbled </a>as the highly transmissible omicron variant sent infections surging. The decision was hailed by business groups and slammed by some union leaders and health experts.

Covid is here to stay. How will we know when it stops being special?

The plan to further loosen isolation guidance when the science around infectiousness has not changed is likely to prompt strong negative reaction from vulnerable groups, including people older than 65, those with weak immune systems and long-covid patients, CDC officials and experts said.

Doing so “sweeps this serious illness under the rug,” said Lara Jirmanus, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and a member of the People’s CDC, a coalition of health-care workers, scientists and advocates focused on reducing the harmful effects of covid-19.

Public health officials should treat covid differently from other respiratory viruses, she said, because it’s deadlier than the flu and increases the risk of developing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/12/31/long-covid-symptoms-treatment-research/" target="_blank">long-term complications</a>. As many as 7 percent of Americans report having suffered from a slew of lingering covid symptoms, including fatigue, difficulty breathing,<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/07/26/long-covid-brain-function-cognition-memory/" target="_blank"> brain fog, </a>joint pain and ongoing loss of taste and smell, according to the CDC.

The new isolation recommendations would not apply to hospitals and other health-care settings with more vulnerable populations, CDC officials said.

While the coronavirus continues to cause serious illness, especially among the most vulnerable people, vaccines and effective treatments such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/16/paxlovid-covid-under-prescribed/" target=_blank>Paxlovid</a> are available. The latest versions of coronavirus vaccines were <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7304a2.htm" target=_blank>54 percent effective</a> at preventing symptomatic infection in adults, according to data released Feb. 1, the first U.S. study to assess how well the shots work against the most recent coronavirus variant. But <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/data-research/dashboard/vaccination-trends-adults.html" target=_blank>CDC data </a>shows only 22 percent of adults and 12 percent of children had received the updated vaccine as of Feb. 9, despite <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7221a3.htm?s_cid=mm7221a3_w" target=_blank>data </a>showing the vaccines provide robust <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/01/25/covid-bivalent-booster-xbb15-infections/#UC5I6ODJI5HENAZGYZGWISLZAQ-1" target=_blank>protection against serious illness</a>.

<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#wastewater-surveillance" target=_blank>Coronavirus levels</a> in<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/04/14/coronavirus-in-wastewater-sewer/" target=_blank> wastewater i</a>ndicate that symptomatic and asymptomatic infections remain high. About <a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklyhospitaladmissions_select_00" target=_blank>20,000 people are still hospitalized </a>— and about<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklydeaths_select_00" target=_blank> 2,300 </a>are dying — every week, CDC data show. But the numbers are falling and are much lower than when deaths peaked in January 2021 when almost 26,000 people died of covid each week and about 115,000 were hospitalized.

The lower rates of hospitalizations were among the reasons California shortened its five-day isolation recommendation <a href="https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19-Isolation-Guidance.aspx" target=_blank>last month</a>, urging people to stay home until they are fever-free for 24 hours and their symptoms are mild and improving. Oregon made a <a href="https://www.oregon.gov/oha/covid19/pages/index.aspx" target=_blank>similar move</a> last May.

California’s state epidemiologist Erica Pan said the societal disruptions that resulted from strict isolation guidelines also helped spur the change. Workers without sick leave and those who can’t work from home if they or their children test positive and are required to isolate bore a disproportionate burden. Strict isolation requirements can act as a disincentive to test when testing should be encouraged so people at risk for serious illness can get treatment, she said.

STEPHANIE KEITH

Giving people symptom-based guidance, similar to what is already recommended for flu, is a better way to prioritize those most at risk and balance the potential for disruptive impacts on schools and workplaces, Pan said. After Oregon made its change, the state has not experienced any disproportionate increases in community transmission or severity, according to data shared last month with the national association representing state health officials.

California still recommends people with covid wear masks indoors when they are around others for 10 days after testing positive — even if they have no symptoms — or becoming sick. “You may remove your mask sooner than 10 days if you have two sequential negative tests at least one day apart,” the California guidance states.

It’s not clear whether the updated CDC guidance will continue to recommend masking for 10 days.

Health officials from other states told the CDC last week that they are already moving toward isolation guidelines that would treat the coronavirus the same as flu and RSV, with additional precautions for people at high risk, said Anne Zink, an emergency room physician and Alaska’s chief medical officer.

Many other countries, including the <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/covid-19/covid-19-symptoms-and-what-to-do/" target=_blank>United Kingdom,</a> Denmark, Finland, Norway and Australia, made changes to isolation recommendations in 2022. Of 16 countries whose policies California officials reviewed, only Germany and Ireland still recommend isolation for five days, according to a presentation the California public health department gave health officials from other states in January. The Singapore ministry of health, in updated guidance late last year, said residents could “return to normal activities” once coronavirus symptoms resolve.

Even before the Biden administration<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/05/04/covid-public-health-emergency-end/" target=_blank> ended the public health emergency</a> last May, much of the public had moved on from covid-19, with many people having long given up testing and masking, much less isolating when they come down with covid symptoms.

Doctors say the best way for sick people to protect their communities is to mask or avoid unnecessary trips outside the home.

“You see a lot of people with symptoms — you don’t know if they have covid or influenza or RSV — but in all three of those cases, they probably shouldn’t be at Target, coughing, and looking sick,” said Eli Perencevich, an internal medicine professor at the University of Iowa.

Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coverage of the war on terrorism, part of national reporting team, 2002

 Robert F. Kennedy journalism award, international print, 1994 

Cornell University, BS in communication

Columbia University, MA in journalism

Lena H. Sun is a national reporter for The Washington Post covering health with a special focus on public health and infectious disease. A longtime reporter at The Post, she has covered the Metro transit system, immigration, education and was a Beijing bureau chief. 

Lena H. Sun

CDC plans to drop five-day covid isolation guidelines

the-washington-post

Health Care

Medical Mysteries

Science

Well+Being

Health

washpost

prism://prism.query/site,/health&limit=20

The Washington Post health section provides coverage and analysis of health, healthcare, nutrition and fitness news.