According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the country should abandon Covid-19 restrictions such as social distancing and quarantine protocols. Instead, the agency advised that the government now focus on addressing the effects of the virus’s diseases.
Last Thursday, the CDC issued a new guideline outlining their recommendations, including the social distancing rule, one of the most widely implemented interventions to halt the spread of Covid-19.
This recommendation, coming from one of the country’s top health agencies, indicates that the US is progressing in its fight against Covid-19. Regarding vaccination, nearly 100 percent of the entire US population has developed immunity to the virus.
“The current conditions of this pandemic are very different from those of the last two years,” said Greta Massetti, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Field Epidemiology and Prevention Branch.
“High levels of population immunity due to vaccination and previous infection and the many available tools to protect the general population, and protect people at higher risk, allow us to focus on protecting people from serious illness from Covid-19.”
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The new guidelines set by the CDC
According to the CDC’s new guidelines, regular Covid-19 testing and contact tracing should now be limited to high-risk areas. Hospitals, nursing homes, and prisons are examples of such facilities. It has also dismissed several quarantine protocols, such as allowing exposed but negative individuals to avoid quarantine.
While the CDC has issued new recommendations, some sections remain unchanged. For example, the CDC still advises Covid-19 testing for people who are experiencing symptoms. In addition, if a person is diagnosed with Covid, he or she should stay at home for five days and wear a face mask for ten days.
The rules for isolating affected individuals have also changed. Patients with moderate symptoms and those who have been hospitalized should stay at home for at least ten days. Immunocompromised individuals should consult their doctors before moving ahead with their isolation.
CDC is only doing it to gain the trust of the public
The CDC guidelines confirm that health officials have already accepted that Covid is now a part of the community and will now reside permanently within the countries it has affected. The suggested safety rules may be a step toward coexisting with the virus with minimal disruptions to work and academic endeavors. Other experts, however, disagree.
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, University of California infectious disease specialist, said, “I think they just overall come into alignment with what people are doing anyway. What the CDC is, in my opinion, trying to do, they are trying to still be relevant, and maybe when they say something, people will listen to them instead of being completely 180 degrees away from what behavior is anyway.”
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An epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health concurs with Chan-Hong. “I think that this is a point where you actually have to sort of get real and start giving people tools they can use to do something or not. Because otherwise, people will just will not take you seriously,” he said.
A cardiologist from the Scripps Research Institute, Dr. Eric Topol, added, “This revision does not go anywhere near enough to correct the problems of flawed recommendations and lack of evidence.”
What are the new safety orders from the CDC
The CDC stated that authorities should maintain practices to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and cure it.
“These recent changes recognize the importance of protecting those most at risk of severe illness, while also standardizing some basic good public health hygiene for the long-term for those less at risk,” stated the National Association of County and City Health Officials CEO, Lori Tremmel Freeman.
“It’s important that we make it as easy as possible for people to continue to protect themselves and others around them as we live with Covid,” Freeman further said.
Source: CNN
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