CDC cuts time health workers who had COVID have to isolate

Health care workers who contract COVID can return to work in seven days if they are asymptomatic and test negative on Day 7, the Centers for Disease Control said Thursday.

Previously, all such workers were required to quarantine for 10 days after testing positive. Non-medical people have also used that 10-day rule for their own personal isolation periods after getting infected.

The CDC changed its guidance so that short-staffed hospitals would have a better chance of combating the omicron wave.

“As the health care community prepares for an anticipated surge in patients due to omicron, CDC is updating our recommendations to reflect what we know about infection and exposure in the context of vaccination and booster doses,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said.

The seven-day rule applies to any health care worker, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated or not.

Walensky said the new rules could “prevent undue burden on our health care facilities.” Omicron quickly became the dominant variant in the U.S. and has thrown holiday plans into chaos as more and more people test positive.

The seriousness of omicron infections remains unclear.

While the variant clearly spreads much quicker and has infected vaccinated people at higher rates, some studies have suggested it is less likely to cause severe illness and death.

In South Africa, where omicron was first identified and sequenced, hospitalization rates dropped even as the virus spread rapidly.

In the U.S., infection numbers have shot up in recent weeks, particularly in large cities such as New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., but hospitalization numbers have not seen a corresponding jump.

However, hospitalizations and deaths often lag behind positive test counts.

Infection numbers in South Africa began spiking around Thanksgiving, but the country has seen a steep decrease in cases in recent days — just one month after the wave began.