January 23, 2024 / By mobanmarket
CALIFORNIA — Test positive for COVID-19? As long as you don’t have any symptoms, you can go to work or school, according to new guidelines from state health officials.
The California Department of Public Health this month rolled back its previous rules, which directed people infected with COVID-19 to isolate for at least five days even when they don’t have symptoms. After years of the some of the strictest COVID-19 protocols in the nation, California’s new guidelines are more lax than the federal recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Not all Golden State school districts have adopted the policy change as of Monday, however.
“Instead of staying home for a minimum of five days, individuals may return to work or school when they start to feel better,” the CDPH said in a statement.
People who test positive can now go about their lives (while still wearing a mask) as long as their symptoms are improving and they are fever-free without medication for 24 hours. People who test positive but never develop symptoms don’t need to isolate, according to the CDPH order.
Masking requirements haven’t changed: People who test positive should wear a mask around other people indoors for the 10 days after they test positive or become sick. People can stop wearing a mask sooner than 10 days following two sequential negative tests at least one day apart, health officials said.
Some California school districts have already begun adjusting their policies to match the new state guidance. Oakland Unified and San Diego Unified are among those who have shifted their policies, according to reports.
The Los Angeles Unified School District is waiting for guidance from county officials and has not made any changes. Fresno Unified continues to recommend that students and staff who test positive stay home, regardless of their symptoms, CalMatters reported.
The relaxed guidelines don’t apply to employees in healthcare settings.
California’s new rules explicitly break with guidance from the CDC, which recommends that people isolate for five days and wear a mask through day 10, regardless of their symptoms.
California’s relaxed rules come after Oregon in May became the first state to break with the CDC by implementing looser isolation rules for those who test positive but show no symptoms. Golden State officials followed suit this month after closely watching Oregon’s experience over the last year, the New York Times reported.
The change has come as a surprise to heath experts, some of whom have expressed worry about the lack of consistency between federal and state guidelines and their understanding of how the virus works.
“We still believe that if there’s enough to detect (on a test), there’s enough to infect,” Dr. Noha Aboelata, chief executive of Roots Community Health Center in Oakland told CalMatters. “So I would recommend people test negative before going around others.”
California’s chief epidemiologist, Dr. Erica Pan, said that the state’s previous policy discouraged workers from even testing themselves because a positive result would have kept them from work for days, the Times reported.
Oregon officials have made similar arguments.
“We knew that the virus was probably the most transmissible known to mankind and about half of all individuals don’t develop symptoms,” Oregon Health Authority’s Dr. Melissa Sutton told the Times. “And isolation alone, in the absence of other protective measures, was doing almost nothing to halt transmission.”
Oregon’s death and hospitalization rates have remained on par with national rates, which Sutton points to as a sign that the state’s new system has at least not made matters worse, the Times reported.
After surging during the holidays, COVID-19 hospital admissions, deaths and positive test rates have begun to decline in California. Over the last week, the state averaged about 2,463 COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to the state health department.
Similarly, RSV and flu activity in the state is also on a downswing after earlier peaks, according to state health data.
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