From Yahoo:
“CDC sticks with new COVID
isolation guidelines despite criticism”
(President Biden, second from
left, and Vice President Kamala Harris, second from right, meet with the White
House COVID-19 response team on Tuesday.)
Despite criticism from a number
of public health experts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
affirmed its new guidelines suggesting those with COVID-19 can exit isolation
in five days without testing. The CDC announced the initial changes on Dec. 27,
saying it was “shortening the recommended time for isolation from 10 days for
people with COVID-19 to five days, if asymptomatic, followed by five days of
wearing a mask when around others.” In a statement posted to its website Tuesday
evening updating its quarantine and isolation suggestions, the CDC said there
was “accumulating evidence” supporting the decision. The new guidance included
information for people who want to test negative to exit isolation but also for
those who do not have access to a test. The organization also pointed to the
“societal” impact of longer isolations, writing: “Spread of the Omicron variant
has the potential to worsen staffing shortages and increase supply chain
challenges, which jeopardize industry, education, and other systems that are
essential to maintain a functioning society and economy.” “The Omicron variant
is spreading quickly and has the potential to impact all facets of our
society,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, in a statement about
the change. “CDC’s updated recommendations for isolation and quarantine balance
what we know about the spread of the virus and the protection provided by
vaccination and booster doses. These updates ensure people can safely continue
their daily lives.”
The United States had over 1
million COVID-19 cases on Monday. The new Omicron variant has led to a number
of “breakthrough” infections of vaccinated people, though those cases have
generally resulted in more mild symptoms. According to tracking by the New York
Times, there has been a 254 percent increase in positive cases and a 51 percent
rise in hospitalizations over the last 14 days. Deaths from the virus have
dipped 3 percent over that same time. Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s
chief medical adviser, had implied on Sunday that a larger COVID guidelines
change tied to the testing was potentially coming. “You’re right there has been
some concern about why we don’t ask people at that five-day period to get tested,”
Fauci said in an interview with ABC News. “That is something that is now under
consideration. The CDC is very well aware that there has been some pushback
about that. Looking at it again, there may be an option in that, that testing
could be a part of that, and I think we’re going to be hearing more about that
in the next day or so from the CDC.” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy then
echoed that in a Tuesday morning interview with CNN.
“They have certainly received
feedback and questions about the role of testing in shortening that quarantine
period, and they’re actually working right now on issuing a clarification on
that,” Murthy said, adding, “They’re going to speak to the role that testing
can play in a situation like reducing isolation.” While the change in
guidelines last week had support among public health experts, there was plenty
of criticism. Union leaders noted that the reduction to five days came after a
push from the business community to halve the isolation period so that jobs could
be filled. Others posited that the testing was not included due to the
sometimes hours-long waits for COVID tests at clinics and a shortage of at-home
tests — partly because U.S. health authorities underestimated the testing
infrastructure that would be needed for new variants. At a Dec. 6 briefing,
press secretary Jen Psaki dismissed the idea of mailing free tests to all
Americans. “Ending isolation of COVID cases in five days without testing
negative is the nose-out-of-mask of COVID-19 policies,” Saad Omer, director of
the Yale Institute for Global Health, wrote on Twitter of the initial changes.
“By not including a testing requirement, there will be a lot of infectious
people in the workforce transmitting the virus to the others — further
increasing the public health risks and likely economic disruptions.” “Of
course, shortage of tests and masks is an issue but increasing supply of tests
and high-quality masks should be a national priority,” Omer concluded. “We
can’t have our pandemic control cake and eat it too.” “It’s frankly reckless to
proceed like this. Using a rapid test or some type of test to validate that the
person isn’t infectious is vital,” Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the
Scripps Research Translational Institute, said last week, adding, “There’s no
evidence, no data to support this.”
During a Dec. 29 briefing of the
White House COVID-19 response team, Walensky had defended the decision. She
said the CDC did not know if antigen, or rapid, tests were capable of assessing
transmissibility at day five and beyond, while the PCR tests could show a
positive result up to 12 weeks after infection — “long after” a person is no
longer infectious — limiting their utility in preventing further spread of the
virus at that stage. She also noted that “studies show that people are most
infectious in the one to two days before symptoms develop, and in the two to
three days after,” with an estimated 85-90 percent of transmission occurring in
the first five days of infection with COVID-19, adding that “after five days,
the risk of transmission substantially decreases.” In an interview with CNN
earlier that day, Walensky further said the CDC’s new five-day isolation
guidelines were also based on an assessment of what “people were willing to
adhere to.” “We have seen relatively low rates of isolation for all of this pandemic,”
Walensky told the news network. “Some science has demonstrated that less than a
third of people are isolating when they need to. So we really wanted to make
sure we had guidance, in this moment where we’re going to have a lot of
disease, that could be adhered to, that people were willing to adhere to, and
that spoke specifically to when people were maximally infectious.”
The White House also defended the
CDC’s guidelines at Tuesday’s press briefing. “The CDC is offering its updated
guidance in real time of a fast-moving and changing pandemic environment,”
Psaki said. “We’ve seen them change guidance and update guidance on other
occasions. They made this recommendation last week based on science. The vast
majority of transmission infectiousness occurs in the first five days after
diagnosis with COVID-19 — somewhere in the range of 85 to 90 percent.”
^ The CDC and those associated
with making and approving the recommendations (Walensky, Fauci, Biden, etc.) have
put money over health in this instance. They are more concerned with a shortage
of employees than people dying. If you have Covid you should NOT be allowed to
work or be around other people in any capacity until you test negative for
Covid. I understand there is a lack of Covid Testing and what Testing there is
takes people hours in line to get and then days to get the results – that is another
major failure on the part of Biden and his people.
We are 2 years into Covid and 1
year into Biden being President during Covid so there is no reason (except for incompetence) that there is a
shortage of Covid Testing or a delay in Testing.
I have long said I trust the
Science and that is still true. In this case I do not trust Biden, Walensky or
Fauci. They have decided not to trust the Science and instead are more focused
on the Economy and Employee Shortages rather than the spread of Covid and the
complete collapse of our already over-burdened hospitals from Delta and Omicron.
^
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