<\/em>as many of them resist taking the other steps the agency has called for. If it works, it could help combat just how bad things get in the next few weeks.<\/p>\nThe shortened quarantine time is all about harm reduction <\/p>\n
In public health, \u201charm reduction\u201d means acknowledging that people are going to take risks, but still trying to make their behavior as safe as possible. People could eliminate their risk of sexually transmitted infections, for example, by never having sex at all \u2014 but given that people are going to have sex, public health officials try to encourage people to do it safely, by using condoms and having fewer partners.<\/p>\n
As we\u2019ve gotten more evidence on how the coronavirus spreads, and as the public has become fatigued with the pandemic and more resistant to tougher measures, health officials have increasingly taken a harm reduction approach to fighting Covid-19. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we might like to imagine we can instantaneously halt all transmission, in reality we are working to prevent as much as possible, which can sometimes involve trade-offs,\u201d Hanage said.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s better if people from different households don\u2019t socialize \u2014 since any interaction carries a risk of transmission \u2014 officials have tried to push people toward safer interactions in outdoor environments where the virus can\u2019t spread as easily. The same impulse drives the push to wear masks: Maybe people shouldn\u2019t get their hair cut at all if they want to eliminate the risk of Covid-19, but if they\u2019re going to, they can at least mitigate the risk of transmission with masks.<\/p>\n
At a press conference announcing the new recommendations, CDC officials were clear that they would still prefer people quarantine for a full 14 days after exposure. But given the constraints people can face, including the need to work, and the more recent evidence that the incubation period may not be two weeks for most people, the CDC is now trying to offer some flexibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can safely reduce the length of quarantine, but accepting that there is a small residual risk that a person who is leaving quarantine early could transmit to someone else if they became infected,\u201d John Brooks, chief medical officer for the CDC\u2019s Covid-19 response, said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not perfect. With the CDC\u2019s new guidance, some coronavirus infections will likely sneak through that could have been prevented by a 14-day quarantine. But if the guidance stops more infections overall by getting more people to quarantine, even for a less-than-perfect amount of time, that\u2019s still a net benefit in reducing transmission.<\/p>\n
This is, in other words, about striking a balance between the ideal steps to stop Covid-19 and people\u2019s willingness to actually follow those steps.<\/p>\n
There are still risks with a shortened quarantine<\/p>\n
A big risk with the CDC\u2019s guidance is there\u2019s still a lot we don\u2019t know about Covid-19. We\u2019re still learning a lot of the basics about the coronavirus and the disease it causes, from how long incubation lasts to the wide range of symptoms to its long-term effects. It\u2019s still not certain how much transmission is driven by people who never experience symptoms, and that could pose a challenge for the CDC\u2019s guidance if it turns out a lot of people leave their quarantine early \u2014 at the new 10-day cutoff, for example \u2014 but are able to spread the virus, unknowingly, to others.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, there are also studies showing that people may not be infectious for as long as previously thought. So it could turn out that the CDC\u2019s new guidance is too lax, just like it could also be that the agency\u2019s guidelines are still generally too strict.<\/p>\n
Some experts were critical about the CDC\u2019s guidance, calling for more clarity or tweaks to the recommendations. Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist, told me she\u2019s concerned that the agency said people can get a test as early as day five of quarantine and use test results to stop quarantining after day seven. \u201cI would\u2019ve liked to see testing on day six or seven and then end of quarantine when the result comes back negative,\u201d Popescu said.<\/p>\n
Still, experts were overall receptive to the change, with Popescu noting that \u201cit can help get more compliance for quarantine.\u201d But, she cautioned, the CDC and other officials should be clear about the limitations and a continued need for other steps, like social distancing when possible and masking.<\/p>\n
The big risk, for now, is the US is still in the middle of a massive Covid-19 outbreak \u2014 one of the worst in the world. In that environment, every single interaction outside of your home is a potential risk for transmission. There\u2019s simply too much virus out there, making it easy for people to spread it.<\/p>\n
Despite these circumstances, public health officials have also had to wrestle with the fact that people aren\u2019t listening. For weeks, experts and officials were advising people not to travel for Thanksgiving. Then the country set records for pandemic-era airline travel last week.<\/p>\n
The same now seems likely to happen again with Christmas and New Year\u2019s, bringing new superspreading events as the country deals with record highs for cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.<\/p>\n
Given that reality, the CDC is trying to meet people where they are: If individuals are going to do things officials prefer they don\u2019t do, they can at least take some measures \u2014 even a reduced quarantine time period \u2014 to help slow spread as much as possible. It\u2019s not perfect, but it\u2019s where the country is at.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested on Wednesday that some people who have been exposed to Covid-19 can quarantine for less than two weeks. The agency said a 14-day quarantine, in which people stay home and avoid interacting with others, is still the safest option if they come into close contact \u2014 within…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}