Well, y’all, a new era in the post-Covid-19 world is upon us. The CDC plans on dropping the five-day isolation rule, beginning in April. This means that people no longer have to stay home from work or school for five days after testing positive for Covid-19 as long as they have been fever-free for 24 hours without needing meds and have mild, improving symptoms. Additional precautions will continue to be recommended for high-risk individuals. These new recommendations would not apply to hospitals and other health-care facilities.

The new rule aligns with the same guidelines that are in place for the flu and RSV. The reasoning behind the changes is that at this point, most Americans have developed a basic level of immunity to covid thanks to the vaccines or having had it before. There are also better treatment options available, such as Paxlovid. The CDC’s anticipated recommendations will follow similar guidelines that California and Oregon have already put into place.

People weren’t following the rules anyway: 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 coronavirus from 10 days to five because they worried essential services would be hobbled 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.

Is this fair to vulnerable groups? 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.

Should we still treat Covid differently? Public health officials should treat covid differently from other respiratory viruses, [Jirmanus] said, because it’s deadlier than the flu and increases the risk of developing long-term complications. As many as 7 percent of Americans report having suffered from a slew of lingering covid symptoms, including fatigue, difficulty breathing, brain fog joint pain and ongoing loss of taste and smell, according to the CDC.

Infections remain high, but… Coronavirus levels in wastewater indicate that symptomatic and asymptomatic infections remain high. About 20,000 people are still hospitalized — and about 2,300 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.

‘A better way to prioritize:’ 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.

Oregon’s promising results: After Oregon made its change [in 2022], 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.

Other countries have already done it: Many other countries, including the United Kingdom, 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.

Seriously, though, don’t go out if you’re sick: 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.

[From The Washington Post]

I don’t know how I feel about all of this. While I do think that all of the data that shows that we as a collective society probably have reached a point where the virus is not life-threatening to most of the population, I still feel uneasy about these new guidelines. The results in Oregon are promising, though. But, let’s be honest: not requiring people to stay home for five days means that most businesses are going to pressure people with Covid to come to work anyway, and just like with RSV and the flu, this sucks for their coworkers who are in high-risk situations. For various reasons, a lot of people either can’t or won’t stay home anymore because pre-pandemic, most people were forced to go to work or school while sick. I was hoping that one of the lessons we learned coming out of the pandemic would be to normalize staying home when we’re sick and wearing masks to protect others. I can’t help but think this will just signify a return to the status quo.

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