The California Department of Public Health updated its list of recommendations regarding COVID-19 infection, noting that it is no longer necessary to isolate for five days when infected, as long as they are asymptomatic.
This change in recommendations, he said, now focuses on clinical symptoms to determine when to end isolation.
The previous isolation recommendations, he specified, were implemented to reduce the spread of a virus to which the population had little immunity and which had caused a large number of hospitalizations and deaths that overwhelmed health systems during the pandemic.
Now, he specified, we find ourselves in a different time with reduced impacts of COVID-19 compared to previous years, due to broad immunity to vaccination and/or natural infection, and to readily available treatments for infected people.
However, he said that vaccination against COVID-19 remains the most important strategy to prevent serious illness and death from the SARS-CoV2 virus, and early treatments are effective in reducing the severity of the disease once the people are infected. ?
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) now recommends the following actions to align with common practice for other respiratory viruses. These actions outline what to do when a person tests positive for COVID-19 and how to protect others, including the most vulnerable in the community.
- Stay home if you have symptoms of COVID-19, until you have been fever-free for 24 hours without using fever-reducing medications AND other COVID-19 symptoms are mild and improve.
- ?????????If you do not have symptoms, wear a mask when you are around others indoors for 10 days after you become ill or test positive (if you do not have symptoms). You can remove your mask sooner than 10 days if you have two sequential negative tests at least one day apart. Day 0 is the date of symptom onset or the date of the positive test.
- Avoid contact with people at higher risk for severe COVID-19 for 10 days. Those most at risk include older adults, those living in congregate care facilities, who have immunocompromising conditions that put them at higher risk for serious illness.
- Seek treatment. If you have symptoms, especially if you are at higher risk for severe COVID-19, talk to a healthcare provider as soon as you test positive. You may be eligible to receive antiviral medications or other treatments for COVID-19. COVID-19 antiviral medications work best if taken as soon as possible and within 5 to 7 days of symptoms starting.
- ???????The potentially infectious period is from 2 days before the date of symptom onset or the date of the positive test (if there are no symptoms) until day 10. (Day 0 is the date onset of symptoms or the date of the positive test).
These changes occur amid a growing number of reinfections with a new strain of the virus, derived from Ómicron, JN. 1., which has become the most common throughout the United States.
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