CDC no longer kindly recommends COVID precautions most weren't following anyway

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its pandemic guidance today, offering slightly more lenient recommendations that likely won't change much of how people Americans are managing the pandemic these days.

According to the updated guidelines, people who are not up to date with their vaccinations, i.e. people who have not been vaccinated or people who have not received the recommended number of boosters, do not no longer need to quarantine if they know they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. Instead, if a non-updated person is exposed, the CDC now recommends wearing a mask for 10 days after exposure and getting tested for COVID-19 on day 5. Currently, about 68% of the US population is not up to date with their COVID-19 vaccination.

This update to the guidelines essentially ends all quarantine recommendations related to COVID-19 since the CDC had previously stated that those who are up to date on their vaccines do not need to quarantine but only to wear a mask for 10 days and test.

While it's unclear how many people were still in quarantine, the end of the COVID quarantine brings with it an important change, probably the most important of all the updates announced today: the end of the CDC's recommendation for "test-to-stay" school policies. These were policies where non-updated students could use negative test results to stay in school after exposure. It was an alternative to quarantining these students. But, in the absence of any quarantine recommendation, the test-to-stay strategy is now useless.

Otherwise, the updated guidance overrides testing suggestions to screen people with no known symptoms or exposures, such as requiring healthy people to test negative for the events. "Screening testing may not be cost-effective in general community settings, particularly if the prevalence of COVID-19 is low," according to guidelines published today in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The CDC says screening may be more useful in high-risk congregate settings, such as long-term care facilities, correctional facilities, or homeless shelters.

Guidance is also minimizing physical distancing as a primary mitigation effort. Instead, the CDC now says people should consider walking away "just one piece of how to protect themselves and others." People should consider factors such as community COVID-19 levels and ventilation when deciding whether physical distancing is necessary, the agency said.

The CDC's looser guidelines are the latest shift from public health messaging to individual choices. Early in the pandemic, public health officials emphasized the need for collective efforts to reduce transmission in communities, protect the most vulnerable, and reduce the risk of creating new variants. But current messaging emphasizes personal decision-making rather than community-wide effects.

"Individuals can use information about the current level of impact of COVID-19 on their community to decide which prevention behaviors to use and when (at all times or at specific times), based on their own risk of serious illness and that of their household members, their risk tolerance and factors specific to the environment," the new guidelines state.

The CDC says it's focused on "sustainable measures." the agency also says its guidelines reflect the fact that the vast majority of the population has some immunity to COVID-19 — from vaccination or previous infection — which reduces the risk of serious illness and death.

"We are now in a stronger place as a nation, with more tools, such as vaccinations, boosters and treatments, to protect ourselves and our communities from serious illness due to COVID-19. COVID-19," Greta Massetti, lead author of the CDC guidelines, said in a statement. “We also have a better understanding of how to protect people from exposure to the virus, such as wearing high-quality masks, testing and improved ventilation. This advice recognizes that the pandemic is not over, but also help us to move...