The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received widespread condemnation this week after shortening its recommended isolation period from ten to five days for those with asymptomatic cases.
The CDC claims that its updated guidance takes into account scientific evidence that COVID-positive individuals are most contagious during the two days prior and three days following the development of symptoms. However, many Americans are viewing the change as a sign that the CDC is prioritizing business interests over human life.
It's worth noting that the CDC guidance are not a mandate, meaning employers and officials don't have to follow them. Michigan has already announced that it won't be adopting the new, more lenient isolation period.
The new guidance comes soon after a huge surge in new coronavirus infections, largely due to the omicron variant. While the omicron variant seems to cause milder cases, the quick spread and subsequent isolation has the potential to drastically reduce the number of workers available to keep airlines and businesses running.
The new guideline is meant to relieve some of that pressure on the economy. However, health experts argue that the shortened isolation approach is "fraught with danger".
"A certain number of days is not sufficient (when) we're looking for indication of non-infectious status," Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist with the University of Ottawa, told reporters.
Experts like Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease expert at McMaster University, say that the CDC's new rules are meant to combat "secondary consequences" of the pandemic like the isolation of essential workers, rather than primary consequences like illness or hospitalization. Dr. Chagla told reporters that isolation has never been a perfect solution due to the fact that the infectious period of COVID-19 isn't "set in stone".
"The reality of the situation is we have to be a little bit pragmatic about what's coming and the number of people that will be infected or exposed to COVID-19," Chagla said.
Even the CDC itself acknowledged that the country is heading for a massive wave of omicron infections.
"Not all of those cases are going to be severe. In fact many are going to be asymptomatic," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told The Associated Press. "We want to make sure there is a mechanism by which we can safely continue to keep society functioning while following the science."
While the science does support the fact that individuals are most contagious during the five days following their infection, many people don't know when they contracted the virus, and others may be contagious for longer than the usual period.
"If you decrease it to five days, you're still going to have a small but significant number of people who are contagious," a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America Dr. Aaron Glatt, told reporters.
The shortened isolation period doesn't just apply to essential workers: health care workers are also being asked to return to work more quickly than ever before, seven days if they're asymptomatic and test negative. The CDC says that 5-day isolation can be implemented at hospitals in the case of significant staffing shortages.
Again, the new guidance only covers asymptomatic cases; those with symptoms are still encouraged to stay home. However, that encouragement may not be enough to protect workers from lost wages or layoffs if they need to isolate for longer.
Another change in the CDC guidance places those who have been vaccinated but have not received their boosters in the same category as those who are partially vaccinated or not vaccinated at all. This means their guidance are more strict than those applied to people with boosters.