The Washington Post reported that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) officials announced on December 3, 2020 that quarantine travel guidelines have been revised. Instead of the suggested 14 days, now the CDC guidelines state that 10 days or even seven can help limit rampant spread of the virus.
This comes off the heels of the agency’s acknowledgement that the two-week quarantine regulation is burdens to many people and a more flexible approach would better benefit overall public health.
The CDC’s updated recommendation also stated someone planning to travel should get a test one to three days in advance and then be tested again three to five days after returning. Ahead of Thanksgiving, the agency also doubled down on its holiday recommendation against travel this holiday season amid an uptick in US COVID-19, claiming more than 1,500 lives day-to-day.
The CDC has expressed extreme concern over the rate at which the virus is spreading. “Cases are rising. Hospitalizations are increasing. Deaths are increasing. We need to try to bend the curve, stop this exponential increase,” Henry Walke, the CDC incident manager for the coronavirus, said during the news briefing. He emphasized the importance of preventing the initial infections: “We’re really asking the American public to prevent these infections, avoid travel, wash their hands, wear a mask and maintain distance.”
Although the original 14-day quarantine recommendation is still advised, the revised plan offers two “acceptable alternative quarantine periods,” Walke said. If testing is readily available, the quarantine can end after a week once a negative test is confirmed if a person tests negative for the virus at some point in the final two days of that period. The test can be either a rapid-response antigen test or the more reliable PCR test that takes longer to process.
Quarantines apply to those who have been exposed to the virus but have no confirmed infection or illness. The goal is to keep infected individuals apart from the rest of the population to bend the curve.
Since the virus incubates slowly, symptoms may not appear for many days or even a few weeks, and in some situations, even longer. People can become infectious to others 24 to 48 hours before symptoms even show up.
According to the CDC, the pandemic has been challenging to control because 20 to 40 percent of people who are infected never develop symptoms yet potentially are still capable of transmitting the virus to others.
The CDC advises that health-care workers and nursing home residents should be prioritized when approaching vaccinations.
According to the Guardian, a government panel met on December 2, 2020 and formally recommended early doses of Covid-19 vaccines be given first to healthcare first responders and long-term care facility residents in the US, generally seen as people who live in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
This means that more than 23 million Americans, disproportionately including women, people of color and low-wage workers would receive the vaccinations, as they make up healthcare labor force.
The recommendation from the panel at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hinges on a vaccine being approved for emergency use by the US Food and Drug Administration and later recommended by the advisory panel.
As more information becomes available, citizens are bracing themselves for what’s to come next.
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