CDC Eyes Shortening COVID Quarantine Time In Hopes Of More Compliance

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is finalizing its recommendations for shorter quarantine times after potential COVID-19 exposure, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports.

The new quarantine time would be between seven and 10 days if one learns they’ve potentially exposed to the coronavirus, down from 14 days, the standard since the pandemic began.

“We do think that the work that we’ve done, and some of the studies we have and the modeling data that we have, shows that we can, with testing, shorten quarantines,” said Henry Walke, who manages the CDC’s COVID-19 response, WSJ reports.

He said that a negative test would make the probability “pretty low” that the person would develop an infection later. Walke acknowledged the possibility of missing some infections, but said he hoped people would be better equipped to quarantine for a shorter time than the former 14 day limit, WSJ writes. That said, the report notes that there hasn’t been a study on how quarantine lengths affect peoples’ willingness to abide.

The 14 day limit was based on what researchers thought would be the length of time it would take for infections to lead to symptoms. But some experts now believe 14 days to be too long, WSJ writes, when combining the evidence showing how long someone is infectious with newer ways to fight the virus.

The number of COVID-19 infections in the U.S. has been topping records for weeks, with the number above 169,190 on Monday (Nov. 23), WSJ writes. The CDC has advised against traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday due to the alarmingly high numbers.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell in November, dropping from 101.4 in October to 96.1 in November, PYMNTS writes. The drop indicates consumers’ pessimistic mood amid the rising numbers of infections, although the numbers may not have taken into account the recent news about numerous different vaccines with above a 90 percent effective rate.