When should qurantine for COVID-19 start, end?
Q: A member of my household tested positive for COVID-19. Do I need to quarantine? If so, for how long?
A: The Tennessee Department of Health has recently clarified its guidelines on this. If you test positive for COVID19, you must isolate yourself for a minimum of 10 days after onset of symptoms, or longer, if your symptoms persist. You must have improvement of your symptoms and also must be feverfree (without the use of fever-reducing medication) for at least 24 hours to end your isolation period. People who are severely ill may need to be isolated for up to 20 days and should seek the advice of their physician.
The same guidelines apply if you have tested positive but have no symptoms. You must be isolated for 10 days after you are tested.
Now, here is where the guidelines have been clarified regarding household contacts. If a member of your household has tested positive, household members must quarantine for 14 days AFTER the date of last contact, which would be when your household member has completed their 10-day quarantine; meaning you would be quarantined for a minimum of 24 days. This is due to the fact that the positive case could be contagious for all 10 days, so you must quarantine for 14 days after the last day of exposure. This is true whether the case is symptomatic or not. If you develop symptoms, you should begin isolating yourself, contact
Paul M. your physician
Hendricks or practitioner and consider getting tested.
A follow-up test is not required to end quarantine (for contacts) or isolation (for active COVID-19 cases). Studies have shown that people who have recovered from COVID-19 may continue to shed the virus for weeks after the virus onset. However, it is at low levels, and infectiousness is very unlikely. Therefore, we rely on a symptom-based — rather than test-based — strategy for ending isolation. CDC guidelines state that individuals who have recovered from COVID19 are highly unlikely to be reinfected for at least 90 days; therefore, the CDC does not recommend any repeat testing, isolation or quarantine during that time. However, if you do develop symptoms during that time, it is always best to consult your physician.
— Paul M. Hendricks, M.D.; Hamilton County Health Department; member, ChattanoogaHamilton County Medical Society