The top US public health agency on Thursday relaxed its COVID-19 guidelines, dropping the recommendation that Americans self-quarantine if they come into close contact with an infected person.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said people no longer needed to stay at least six feet apart from others.
The changes are prompted by a recognition that, more than two and a half years since the start of the pandemic, an estimated 95% of Americans aged 16 and older have acquired some level of immunity, either to get vaccinated or become infected, agency officials said. .
“The current conditions of this pandemic are very different from the past two years,” said CDC’s Greta Massetti, author of the guidelines.
In Canada, it is estimated that more than half of Canadians have been infected with COVID since December following the emergence of Omicron and its highly contagious subvariants, and more than 80 per cent of Canadians have had two doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) still recommends quarantining for 10 days after entering Canada if travelers test positive at the border or show symptoms, but provincial public health restrictions vary across the country.
The CDC’s recommendations apply to everyone in the US, but the changes could be especially important for schools, which resume classes this month in many parts of the country.
Perhaps the biggest education-related change is the end of the recommendation that schools conduct routine daily testing, although that practice may be reinstated in certain situations during a spike in infections, officials said.
The CDC also abandoned a “test to stay” recommendation, which said students exposed to COVID-19 could be tested regularly, rather than self-quarantine at home, to continue attending school. With no quarantine recommendations, the test option also disappeared.
Masks continue to be recommended only in areas where community transmission is considered high or if a person is considered to be at high risk of serious illness.
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School districts across the U.S. have been easing their COVID-19 precautions in recent weeks, even before the CDC relaxed its guidance.
Masks will be optional in most school districts when classes resume this fall, and some of the nation’s largest districts have waived or eliminated COVID-19 testing requirements.
Some have also moved away from test-to-stay programs that became unmanageable during the omicron variant surges last year. With so many new infections among students and staff, many schools struggled to trace and test their close contacts, prompting a temporary return to remote classes in some places.
The average number of reported COVID-19 cases and deaths has been relatively constant this summer, at around 100,000 cases per day and 300 to 400 deaths.
The CDC previously said that if people who are not up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines come into close contact with a person who tests positive, they should stay home for at least five days. The agency now says home quarantine isn’t necessary, but urges those people to wear a high-quality mask for 10 days and get tested after five.
The agency goes on to say that people who test positive should isolate themselves from others for at least five days, regardless of whether they were vaccinated. CDC officials advise that people can end self-isolation if they have been fever-free for 24 hours without medication and have no symptoms or are improving.
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