Coronavirus patients should not rely on negative test results for exiting quarantine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday, and instead should leave based on symptoms.
“Studies have not found evidence that clinically recovered persons with persistence of viral RNA have transmitted [COVID-19] to others,” new CDC guidance said. “These findings strengthen the justification for relying on a symptom based, rather than test-based strategy for ending isolation of these patients.”
People with mild or moderate symptoms of COVID-19 are infectious no longer than 10 days after showing symptoms of infection, according to the CDC. Patients who have stopped experiencing symptoms may still test positive for having the coronavirus genomes for up to three months after getting sick, but at such small concentrations that the patient is no longer infectious.
The CDC suggests that instead of relying solely on diagnostic test results to determine if the coronavirus patient should remain in isolation, the decision to allow people to reenter society and the workforce should hinge on whether the patient is still experiencing symptoms. Patients should not be sidelined by positive test results months after symptoms go away.
CDC guidance recommends that “isolation and precautions can generally be discontinued 10 days after symptom onset and resolution of fever for at least 24 hours, without the use of fever-reducing medications, and with improvement of other symptoms.”
The guidelines also say that there is no proof that a person can be infected with COVID-19 twice, but if a person shows symptoms again after 90 days of feeling healthy again and a physician cannot point to another possible diagnosis, the person should be tested again for the coronavirus.
The latest CDC guidance asserting that COVID-19 is contagious for a short amount of time and that additional testing may not be necessary could help free up test capacity that will be strained by the time the flu season begins.
