I HUNG OUT WITH FRIEND WHO TESTED POSITIVE. WAS I EXPOSED?

We’ve heard it before: Wear a mask, practice social distancing, avoid crowds and wash our hands regularly. These are all important ways to protect ourselves from the coronavirus and from spreading it to others.

But what happens if you took those safety precautions and were hanging out with a friend who later tests positive for the coronavirus? If you were both wearing masks and stayed 6 feet apart, do you need to be concerned about having been exposed? Here’s what you should know.

1. How does the CDC define ‘close contacts’?

Close contacts are the people contact tracers track down and advise to quarantine and get tested after being exposed to someone with COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines a close contact as anyone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a minimum of 15 minutes within a 24-hour period, starting from two days before illness onset — or, for asymptomatic people, two days prior to getting tested — until the time the person is isolated. If you don’t fit these criteria, you won’t get a call from contact tracers, even if you’ve hung out with someone who ends up testing positive. Experts say, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean you weren’t exposed.

2. There are factors beyond distancing.

Many factors affect the spread of the coronavirus, including ventilation, whether the infected person already had symptoms and what kind of activity you were doing. Being around someone for less than 15 minutes doesn’t completely eliminate your risk of becoming infected. Neither does staying 6 feet apart. But both measures help contact tracers narrow down who should quarantine and get tested after an exposure.

“There are shades of concern. As epidemiologists, we’ve more recently been looking at what we call the Swiss cheese model of protection,” says Michael Levasseur, assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Drexel University.“each layer of defense is not perfect, but when you line them all together, they offer much stronger protection.”

Like Swiss cheese, protective measures like distancing, wearing a mask, hand washing and testing all have holes the virus can go through. But the more you layer those together, the greater the chance of covering those holes and protecting yourself and others. Getting vaccinated will likely become your least hole-filled layer of protection.

One important measure to consider is whether you were hanging out inside or outside.“the setting really matters here,”says Krys Johnson, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at Temple University.“if you’re wearing masks and social distancing, but you’re in a small room together, that’s still going to lead to an increased risk.”

3. You don’t have to quarantine. Should you?

If it’s feasible, Levasseur recommends quarantining as if you were considered a close contact. “It’s not a quarantine in any kind of mandated way, but in the ‘I don’t want to infect the people I’d be spending time with’ way,” Levasseur says.“we have this new variant that’s 56% more infectious. Now is not the time to let down our guard.”

We’re advised to keep hangouts with those outside of our household to a minimum regardless.

“Make sure you’re wearing your mask at all times, and you’re not around folks who aren’t wearing masks,”johnson says.

Bottom line: If you end up hanging out with someone (masked, at a distance) who tests positive, empower yourself in the situation by using extra caution. Until the pandemic ends and hospital beds free up, erring on the side of safety will always be the prescribed advice.