A pedestrian sporting a protecting face masks walks previous the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ge
A pedestrian sporting a protecting face masks walks previous the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday, March 14, 2020.
Elijah Nouvelage | Bloomberg by way of Getty Photos
The U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention clarified on Friday that its up to date quarantine steerage doesn’t indicate people who find themselves contaminated with the coronavirus are proof against reinfection within the following three months, contradicting experiences that stated the company’s steerage suggests in any other case.
On Friday, it was reported that CDC tips on quarantining, which have been up to date on Aug. 3, point out that people who find themselves contaminated with the coronavirus are shielded from reinfection for not less than three months afterward.
The steerage says that folks in shut contact with somebody with Covid-19 ought to quarantine, “excluding individuals who have had COVID-19 inside the previous Three months.” It additionally says “individuals who have examined constructive for COVID-19 don’t must quarantine or get examined once more for as much as Three months so long as they don’t develop signs once more.”
The steerage relies “on research that discovered that, after three months, there was no proof of individuals getting re-infected after recovering,” NBC Information reported Friday citing a CDC official.
Nonetheless, the CDC later clarified in an announcement that the up to date steerage doesn’t counsel somebody who was as soon as contaminated with the coronavirus is protected against reinfection for the next three months.
“Opposite to media reporting right this moment, this science doesn’t indicate an individual is proof against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, within the Three months following an infection,” the CDC stated in an announcement.
As a substitute, the company “merely suggests” that retesting somebody within the following three months after their preliminary an infection is pointless until that individual exhibits signs that may’t be related to one other sickness, in keeping with the CDC assertion.
That is as a result of somebody who has examined constructive for Covid-19 can nonetheless take a look at constructive once more for as much as three months after analysis however not be infectious to others, a CDC official instructed CNN.
Analysis has discovered that the quantity of virus that may infect different individuals drops considerably after individuals develop signs, the CDC stated. Most individuals are not infectious 10 days after their signs start and 20 days for individuals with extreme sickness or those that are immunocompromised, the CDC added.
World well being consultants have acknowledged that it is unknown how lengthy somebody who’s contaminated with the coronavirus and recovered is likely to be shielded from reinfection, although it is believed there may be some degree of immune response.
World Well being Group officers stated in July that research counsel immunity in sufferers who recovered from Covid-19 might wane after just a few months. Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s rising ailments and zoonosis unit, stated that whereas scientists haven’t got a whole reply, sufferers “do mount some degree of an immune response.”
“What we do not know is how robust that safety is and for a way lengthy that safety will final,” she stated at a information convention on the group’s Geneva headquarters. “So there are a selection of research underneath method which can be attempting to reply these questions.”