Experts question CDC guidelines on isolation after testing positive for COVID as Biden continues to work remotely

Don’t miss: Paxlovid was administered to Biden and millions of Americans infected with COVID-19. In the UK it is off the shelf.

Experts worry, however, that the CDC’s guidance on isolation is confusing and does not reflect the changing nature of the virus some two and a half years into the pandemic, reported the Washington Post.

The CDC recommends a five-day period of isolation, but does not insist on a negative test which would prove that a patient is no longer shedding virus and is unlikely to infect another person. Yet new research shows that people often remain infectious for more than five days, meaning it’s vital that when isolation ends they continue to wear a properly fitted mask around others at home. or in indoor spaces until the 10th day, the newspaper reported.

“Given that a significant portion of people have a rapid positive test after 5 days, I think an updated recommendation should include people who have a rapid negative test before coming out of isolation for COVID,” Tom Inglesby , director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Biden administration’s senior adviser on December-April testing told The Washington Post.

The CDC is expected to unveil new recommendations in the coming weeks after an internal review, according to the Post, citing three officials and advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity. However, a draft of the update does not include a requirement for testing before ending isolation, they said.

Read also: On-campus COVID-19 vaccination mandates have had the greatest impact on colleges with low-income students. Here’s why they were so effective.

The daily average of new cases in the United States remains close to 130,000 per day, but not all of the data is being captured as many people test from home. The average stood at 121,313 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 4% from two weeks ago.

The daily average of hospitalizations rose to 43,653, up 5% in two weeks. The daily average of deaths is up 4% to 446.

Coronavirus update: MarketWatch’s Daily Roundup organizes and reports all the latest developments each day of the week since the start of the coronavirus pandemic

Other COVID-19 news you should know:

• Japan is considering changes to its COVID-19 notification protocols, including a change in how it collects case numbers, in a bid to ease the burden on hospitals as they endure a new surge that s has spread across the country, The Japan Times reported, citing government sources. Medical facilities and public health centers are currently cooperating to report the total number of COVID-19 cases to the government, but the change may limit case reporting to designated facilities. With the widespread omicron variant having less risk of causing serious illness compared to previous strains, some government officials have questioned the need to report every case. The government is expected to begin formal discussions after the end of the seventh wave of the pandemic.

• President Joe Biden is set to appoint top officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to serve as White House coordinators to combat the growing outbreak of monkeypox, the Associated Press reported, as the disease replaces COVID in the headlines. Biden will announce on Tuesday that he has tapped Robert Fenton, who helped lead FEMA’s mass vaccination effort against COVID-19 as the agency’s acting administrator when Biden took office. , as coordinator of the White House. CDC’s Dr. Demetre Daskalakis will be named his deputy. Daskalakis, director of the agency’s HIV prevention division and national expert on issues affecting the LGBTQ community, previously helped lead New York City’s COVID-19 response. Separately, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to accelerate efforts to fight the monkeypox outbreak, becoming the second state in three days to take the plunge, after New York.

• Apple
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abandons its face mask mandate for employees in “most places”, The Verge reported, citing an internal email from the company’s COVID response team that she obtained. “Feel free to continue wearing a face mask if you feel more comfortable doing so,” the email read. “Additionally, please respect each individual’s decision to wear a mask or not.” The move comes amid a rise in the highly transmissible BA.5 variant of COVID-19. Earlier this week, the Bay Area transit system BART brought back its mask mandate.

• The number of businesses filing for voluntary liquidation in England and Wales hit a record high in the second quarter after COVID support schemes were scrapped, Reuters reported. The total number of business insolvencies jumped 81% from April-June last year, with most being voluntary creditor liquidations (CVLs) which were the highest since records began in 1960, said the government’s insolvency service. The total number of business insolvencies was 13% higher than in the January-March quarter.

Here’s what the numbers say

The global tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases topped 578.5 million on Monday, while the death toll topped 6.40 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The United States leads the world with 91.5 million cases and 1,030,554 deaths.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tracker shows that 223.2 million people living in the United States are fully immunized, or 67.2% of the total population. But only 107.9 million had a booster, or 48.3% of the vaccinated population, and only 19.9 million of people aged 50 and over eligible for a second booster had one, or 30.9% of those who had a first recall.