Among theare an end to the recommendation that anyone exposed to someone with COVID be isolated for several days and the abandonment of “test-to-stay” rules, which required students in a classroom with a confirmed case be tested regularly in order to stay in school. The new guidance also ends the agency’s emphasis on physical distancing as a mitigation strategy, a core element of the nation’s pandemic response for more than two years.
“This guidance acknowledges that the pandemic is not over, but also helps us move to a point where COVID-19 no longer severely disrupts our daily lives,”In a news conference explaining the new rules,that “COVID-19 is here to stay,” but argued that widespread immunity from vaccines and previous infections means the country is in “a different place” than it was earlier in the pandemic.
There has been no change in the CDC’s stance on vaccines, which the agency continues to promote as the single most important way to prevent severe infections and deaths. Masks are also still viewed as a key mitigation strategy in certain circumstances. And the agency has maintained its guidance that people who test positive for COVID should isolate for several days.
“With the agency finally loosening restrictions that have been obsolete for more than a year now, state and local governments should drop their last restrictions and go back to normal.” — Zachary Faria,“Though we’d have hoped for more, the new recommendations are more than mere technical window-dressing. On the contrary. They could fundamentally change the lives of school kids from coast to coast, getting public schools open again. Just as they are supposed to be. As they must be.
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