The experts I spoke with for this story describe the instructions a bit differently-labyrinthine, perhaps even a little brazen and overly crude.
A DUMPSTER FIRE HOW TO
They “focus on the period when a person is most infectious,” and “facilitate individual and societal needs, return to work, and maintenance of critical infrastructure.” The recommendations are also accompanied by a “ consumer-friendly summary,” she said, of how to interpret them. The new guidelines are meant to do that, Jade Fulce, a public-affairs specialist at the CDC, told me. Briefer isolations, if managed safely, could help keep the country afloat. People have been bandying about the idea of a shortened isolation period for many, many months such a move could have a hefty social and economic impact right now, as infection rates surge and workplaces, hospitals, and schools across the nation empty out. Obviously, we’re in crisis right now, and the CDC has been tasked with an extraordinarily difficult job-debuting new guidance that’s simple, scientific, equitable, and also palatable, based on evidence that’s both limited and rapidly evolving by the day. Read: Omicron is pushing America into soft lockdownĪ pause for some charitableness here.
I asked Alison Buttenheim, who studies the intersection of vaccines and human behavior at the University of Pennsylvania, if she thought people would just give up on trying to parse the guidelines and simply improvise their own end-of-isolation rules. At a time when Omicron cases are already shattering records nationwide, the costs of muddled messaging are extraordinarily high. The agency is yet again punting the responsibility of infection control to the masses allowing people’s fates to splinter by timing, by testing, by … whatever is hardly good incentive for the public to read the instructions, much less follow them to a T. Such a mess has, unfortunately, become par for the course in the CDC’s handling of the pandemic. “Of all the communication stumbles since February 2020, this one ranks in the top three,” another said. “Unnecessarily confusing,” someone else decreed. “It’s a hot mess,” one researcher told me. It lacks crucial caveats, can’t seem to make up its mind on the role of testing, and asks people to do so, so much before they can get back to daily life. The guidance reads like a nightmarish choose-your-own-adventure book, they’ve told me.
A DUMPSTER FIRE UPDATE
In the week and a half since the CDC said that it was planning to update its isolation guidance, I’ve heard almost exclusively harsh reactions from experts, who have criticized the recommendations as convoluted, wishy-washy, and even unscientific.
If you’re overwhelmed, you’re not the only one. Just please, still wear that mask until day 10, though remember that negative results can’t rule out infection, and that antigen tests tend to perform best when they’re taken repeatedly over a couple of days, and also, you don’t technically have to test at all. First, though, you have to find a test-make sure it’s a rapid antigen test-and take it “towards the end” of your five-day isolation.
You can test out of isolation, by the way, if you like. Okay, fine, you may travel if you must just don’t forget that mask. If you do leave isolation after day five, the CDC would like you to, please, until you’re past day 10, still wear a mask everywhere you go, and not eat inside of restaurants, and not mingle with high-risk people, and not travel.
Here’s the slightly longer version: You can leave isolation after five days, without a negative test, if you’re not severely sick you’re not immunocompromised you’re not in a correctional facility, in a homeless shelter, or on a cruise ship and you feel that your symptoms are mostly gone, if you had any at all. So far, the best way I’ve got to sum it up is this: Hunker down for five days instead of the typical 10, then do what you want. On Tuesday, the CDC officially dropped the detailed, 1,800-word version of its new isolation guidance for people who have been infected by the coronavirus.
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