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On July 20, 2020 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an update to its guidance on the…
On July 20, 2020 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an update to its guidance on the criteria for determining when a worker diagnosed with COVID-19 may return to work. The guidance is titled “Discontinuation of Isolation for Persons with COVID-19 Not in Healthcare Settings” and makes significant changes in comparison to its previous version.
The changes are as follows:
- A test-based strategy is no longer recommended to determine when to discontinue home isolation except in certain circumstances.
- Symptom-based criteria were modified as follows: (1) Change from “at least 72 hours” to “at least 24 hours” have passed since last fever without the use of fever-reducing medications; (2) changed from “improvement in respiratory symptoms” to “improvement in symptoms” to address expanding list of symptoms associated with COVID-19.
- For patients with severe illness, duration of isolation for up to 20 days after symptom onset may be warranted. Consider consultation with infection control experts.
- For persons who never develop symptoms, isolation and other precautions can be discontinued 10 days after the date for their first positive RT-PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 RNA.
Sources:
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