CDC shortens isolation period for health workers amid rapid advance by Ómicron

Photo: MARK FELIX / AFP / Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated on Thursday the isolation protocols for health workers with positive results for Covid – 19 , as hospitals prepare for the rapid spread of Ómicron and the growing shortage of staff.

The agency issued revised guidelines for healthcare workers as Omicron cases rise and hospitals grapple with a worker shortage that has left wards understaffed.

The agency recommended that healthcare workers testing positive for Covid – 19 who are asymptomatic return to work after seven days and a negative test, adding that “isolation time can be further reduced if there is a shortage of staff.”

The agency also said that workers who had received all recommended doses of vaccine, including boosters, did not need to self-quarantine at home after high-risk exposures.

Hospital administrators have emphasized that new changes that allow employees to resume work before would not put patients at risk.

The new recommendations of the agency do not apply to the public.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the CDC had established an isolation period of 14 days for infected Americans , to reduce the risk of contagion, but later discarded as more research confirmed that the typical patient would be infectious for a period shorter time frame.

Nurses union criticized the d ecision

The National Nurses United (NNU), the nation’s largest registered nurse union, condemned today’s decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to shorten the period of isolation for nurses and other healthcare workers who tested positive for Covid – 19, from 10 days to 7 and that it is no longer necessary for health workers who are vaccinated and with the dose of reinforcement, please self-quarantine if you have been exposed to coronavirus.

The NNU sent a letter to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, signed by the president of the NNU, Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, RN, urging the agency to “maintain current guidance on isolation after a positive SARS-CoV-2 test for healthcare workers, other front-line workers, and e l general public ”.

The nurse’s union stated in its letter that “ceasing to require fully vaccinated and reinforced healthcare workers to quarantine themselves after a high-risk exposure, ignores the basic principles of infection control and the precautionary principle. ”

He also felt that a more effective response to the rapidly spreading Omicron variant would be for the CDC to existing post-exposure guidelines will be improved to fully recognize that this coronavirus is airborne and to detect the false equivalence between masks and respirators.