CDC drops 5-day isolation guidance for COVID-19 cases
The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control on Friday rolled back its longstanding five-day isolation guidance for people who come down with COVID-19.
Under the updated guidelines, the CDC says those infected with the coronavirus can return to work or the public just one full day after their fever subsides.
“Today’s announcement reflects the progress we have made in protecting against severe illness from COVID-19,” agency Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a statement.
“However, we still must use the commonsense solutions we know work to protect ourselves and others from serious illness from respiratory viruses—this includes vaccination, treatment, and staying home when we get sick.”
The guidelines for isolation have not been updated since Dec. 2021, when CDC had shortened the recommended isolation time for Americans with asymptomatic cases to five days from the previous guidance of 10 days.
The announcement follows reports last month that the policy change was in the works due to a decrease in infections.
The US has seen an overall decline in COVID-19 cases — 17,300 people were hospitalized and 510 people died from the virus during the week of Feb. 17, the most recent CDC data available.
The updated guidelines, however, do not affect workers at nursing homes and other health care facilities. Medical personnel should follow recommendations to stay home at least seven days after symptoms first appear, and that they test negative within two days of returning to work, according to the CDC.
While the guidelines have been significantly scaled back, health officials are still urging sick persons to take extra precautions in the first five days following an infection.
Those with COVID-19 are encouraged to stay home until 24 hours after a fever, stay up to date with vaccinations, wearing a mask and social distancing — all of which reflects guidelines similar to other highly contagious viruses.
“While every respiratory virus does not act the same, adopting a unified approach to limiting disease spread makes recommendations easier to follow and thus more likely to be adopted and does not rely on individuals to test for illness, a practice that data indicates is uneven,” the CDC said in the announcement.
https://nypost.com/2024/03/01/us-news/cdc-drops-five-day-isolation-rules-for-covid-19-infections/
************************************************Covid pandemic could have been avoided and contained to Wuhan, professor claims
The Covid pandemic could have been avoided and contained to Wuhan, a professor has claimed in a damning book that lifts the lid on Chinese blunders that allowed the virus to spread across the globe and kill millions of people.
'Wuhan: How the Covid-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control', by leading author Professor Dali Yang was published on Friday and explores the pandemic in forensic detail.
Prof Yang draws a devastating conclusion that the pandemic, which started with the first known patients in the eastern Chinese city in late December 2019, was not inevitable.
The book explores key events that came before a lockdown was imposed on Wuhan, including how a mass banquet was held on January 18 that saw more than 100,000 people come together despite health officials knowing the virus was spreading.
Prof Yang offers a deep analysis of who knew what and when about the virus, but barely touches on the origins of Covid-19, The Telegraph reports.
It instead looks at the individual heroism seen during the pandemic as well as the flawed decision-making and lack of clarity as officials tried to deal with a mysterious 'pneumonia of unknown etiology'.
Prof Yang concludes that the global pandemic, which led to the deaths of an estimated 13.3 to 16.6million people worldwide, could have been prevented.
'I do think there was a meaningful chance that the pandemic could have been avoided,' Prof Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, told The Telegraph.
The professor believes that Chinese health authorities were dealt a 'remarkably strong hand of cards' in the early days of the virus breaking out.
'China is a country with significant capabilities, which could have advanced the knowledge and response more rapidly at the end of December 2019,' he added.
But he says any advantage was destroyed by a authoritarian political system that was not prepared for the emergency.
The pandemic dates back to when several of Wuhan's doctors at some of China's best hospitals discovered that a 'pneumonia of unknown etiology' in the city was showing sign of 'human-to-human' transmission.
Experts had feared that the virus was linked to the SARS coronavirus that plagued East Asia between 2002 and 2004. On doctor told the local Centre for Disease Control (CDC): 'It's a disease we've never encountered before, it's also a family [cluster of] infections. Something is definitely wrong!'
Coronavirus was confirmed by Vision Medicals, a lab based in Guangzhou, who tested 'Patient A' - a 65-year-old man with severe pneumonia and 'multiple scattered patchy faint opacities in both lungs'.
'Due to the sensitivity of the diagnostic results', the lab only confirmed the positive test result for a SARS-like coronavirus to the hospital over the phone and not in writing.
Doctors found it was 81 per cent similar to the first SARS coronavirus outbreak. And screenshots that appeared online showed the virus was instantly recognised as something that 'should be treated in the same class as the plague' in order to contain it.
Despite growing evidence pointing towards a possible pandemic, the local CDC was slow in its response.
Gao Fu, the director general of the national CDC, only head about the Wuhan outbreak via social media on December 30.
And while he acted swiftly with emergency responses, the next few weeks were marred by mistakes, censorship and political interests which failed to stop the virus spreading rampantly.
'The first week in January became a pivotal turning point for handling the outbreak. Just the wrong kind,' the book states. 'The failure to act before January 20 was monumental.'
One of the biggest mistakes was failing to respond to several cases in Wuhan that were not linked to the Huanan Seafood Market - the location of the first clusters.
Prof Yang suggests that when the market was therefore closed, people believed the virus was under control and the virus was able to spread amid a false sense of security.
Other factors that contributed to working against containing the virus was China's political tradition of suppressing information to maintain social stability.
'Clearly many [doctors] are heroes but, if you read between the lines, they also operated within constraints,' Prof Yang said.
'It's clearly not a black and white picture but shades of grey. Some of the most heroic doctors happened to be also ones who might not have spoken up like they could have. It's a very complicated picture.'
Doctors who did speak out were reprimanded by police and infections among hospital staff were covered up .
Even as Wuhan moved closer towards a lockdown, high-profile events such as Chinese New Year celebrations were still showcased to try and prove everything was under control.
It was Taiwan’s Dr Chuang Yin-ching who said the outbreak was much worse than feared on January 13 2020. When he returned, Taiwan issued a travel alert for Wuhan and tightened border controls.
But back in Wuhan, the severity of the virus continued to be downplayed and it was left to Dr Zhong Nanshan, 83, a trusted veteran of the first SARS epidemic, to warn that Covid was 'certainly transmissible from human to human'.
He confirmed that cases were being seen in Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai, and Zhejiang and even abroad in Japan, South Korea and Thailand. At this point, China was put on alert and citizens were advised to wear face masks.
However, New Year celebrations still took place in the Wuhan and Hubei province, with residents invited to apply for 200,000 free passes to visit landmark sites. Local media praised performers for continuing despite being sick.
By the time Wuhan was sealed off from the rest of the world on January 23, some 500,000 people had left the country for the holidays.
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Lockdowns may be GOOD for you
Strange findings
Lockdowns during the Covid pandemic led to two 'fascinating' changes in babies bodies that may have protected them against disease and allergies, a study has found.
Researchers from University College Cork in Ireland found that children born while the world was locked down during Covid had an altered gut microbiome - the ecosystem of 'good' and 'bad' bacteria in the gut that aid in digestion, destroys harmful bacteria and helps control the immune system.
The biome was found to be more beneficial in the infants.
Researchers believe this led 'Covid babies' to have lower than expected rates of allergic conditions, such as food allergies, compared to pre-pandemic babies, the scientists found.
They also required fewer antibiotics to treat illnesses.
Researchers analyzed fecal samples from 351 Irish babies born in the first three months of the pandemic, between March and May 2020, and compared them to samples from babies born before the pandemic.
Online questionnaires were used to collect information on diet, home environment and health to account for variables.
Stool samples were collected at six, 12 and 24 months and allergy testing was performed at 12 and 24 months.
The Covid newborns were found to have more of the beneficial microbes gained from their mother after birth, which could act as a defense against allergic diseases.
If individuals have a disrupted gut microbiome, this may lead to the development of food allergies.
Babies born in the pandemic had lower allergy rates: About five percent of the Covid babies had developed a food allergy at age one, compared to 22.8 percent in the pre-Covid babies.
Researchers said that mothers had passed on the beneficial microbes to their babies while pregnant, and they gained additional ones from the environment after they were born.
The study also found that babies born during lockdowns had fewer infections because they were not exposed to germs and bacteria.
This meant they needed fewer antibiotics - which kill good bacteria - leading to a better microbiome.
The lockdown babies were also breastfed for longer, which provided additional benefits.
Of the Covid babies, only 17 percent of infants required an antibiotic by one year of age.
In the pre-pandemic cohort, meanwhile, 80 percent of babies had taken antibiotics by 12 months.
This was 'fascinating outcome,' joint senior author Liam O'Mahony, professor of immunology at the University College Cork, said, and 'correlated with higher levels of beneficial bacteria such as bifidobacteria.'
Professor Jonathan Hourihane, consultant pediatrician at Children's Health Ireland Temple Street and joint senior author of the study, said: 'This study offers a new perspective on the impact of social isolation in early life on the gut microbiome.
'Notably, the lower allergy rates among newborns during the lockdown could highlight the impact of lifestyle and environmental factors, such as frequent antibiotic use, on the rise of allergic diseases.'
The researchers hope to re-examine the children when they are five years old to see if there are any long-term impacts of the early changes in gut microbiome.
The study was published in the journal Allergy.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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