The major US public health agency on Thursday eased its COVID-19 guidelines, dropping the recommendation that Americans self-quarantine if they have been in close contact with an infected person.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said people no longer need to stay at least six feet away from others.
Agency officials said the changes are prompted by the realization that — more than two and a half years since the pandemic began — an estimated 95 percent of Americans age 16 and older have acquired some level of immunity, either from vaccination or infection. .
“The current conditions for this pandemic are very different from those of the past two years,” said Greta Massetti of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the author of the guidelines.
In Canada, it is estimated More than half of Canadians They have contracted COVID since December after Omicron and its highly contagious sub variants emerged, and more than 80 percent of Canadians have received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
Public Health Canada (PHAC) still recommends this Quarantine for 10 days Upon entering Canada if travelers test positive at the border or show symptoms, but there are public health restrictions in the province Varies across the country.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations apply to everyone in the United States, but the changes could be especially important for schools, which are resuming classes this month in many parts of the country.
Perhaps the biggest education-related change is the end of recommending that schools run daily routine testing, although the practice could be reinstated in certain situations while the number of infections increases, officials said.
The CDC also dropped a “survival test” recommendation, which said students exposed to COVID-19 could be tested regularly — rather than being quarantined at home — to continue going to school. With no quarantine recommendation in place anymore, the test option is gone, too.
Masks continue to be recommended only in areas where transmission in the community is considered high, or if a person is at high risk of developing severe disease.
Hours-long delays at Canadian airports prompted the government to change COVID-19 screening rules ahead of the busy summer travel season.
School districts across the United States have scaled back their COVID-19 precautions in recent weeks even before the CDC relaxed its guidance.
Masks will be optional in most school districts when classes resume this fall, and some of the nation’s largest counties have either returned or eliminated COVID-19 testing requirements.
Some have also moved away from survival testing programs that became unmanageable during sharp increases in the omicron variable last school year. With so many new infections among students and staff, many schools have struggled to trace and test their close contacts, leading to a temporary return to remote classrooms in some places.
The average number of cases and deaths from COVID-19 has been relatively flat this summer, at about 100,000 cases per day and 300 to 400 deaths.
The CDC previously said that if people who have not been up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, they should stay home for at least five days. Now the agency says home quarantine is not necessary, but it is urging those people to wear a high-quality mask for 10 days and get tested after five days.
The agency continues to say that people who test positive should isolate from others for at least five days, regardless of whether or not they have been vaccinated. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials advise that people can end isolation if they have been fever-free for 24 hours without medication and have been asymptomatic or symptoms improve.
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