Loosened COVID-19 guidance from the CDC was met with mixed reactions from the healthcare community, with some calling the less rigid recommendations appropriate at this stage of the pandemic, and others highlighting risks.
The updated guidance was released Aug. 11, with key changes including a recommendation that quarantine is no longer needed after exposure (with masking for 10 days), and a reduced emphasis on social distancing. Compared to the former, more rigid guidance created early on in the pandemic, the new guidance prioritizes mitigating the risk of severe disease and places the onus of assessing risks on individuals, rather than businesses and institutions. It emphasizes the importance of staying up to date with vaccinations and treatments and improving indoor ventilation.
Four reactions from health experts:
Jerome Adams, MD. Former U.S. Surgeon General: "The fact that [the CDC] is changing guidance shouldn't be taken as proof that they were necessarily 'wrong,' on a particular issue. The virus has changed, our tools and immunity have changed, and our knowledge has changed. So too must our guidance. That's how science works," Dr. Adams tweeted.
Mercedes Carnethon, PhD. Epidemiologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine (Chicago): "We certainly know that wearing a high-quality mask is going to provide some of the strongest protection against spreading it to somebody else, and quarantine is logistically burdensome," she told The New York Times. "That could be seen as a relaxing of guidelines, but I think it's a much more appropriate and targeted solution."
William Hanage, PhD. Epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Boston): He described the new guidelines as "a concession to realism, to the way that a lot of people are handling this," The Washington Post reports. He called them "entirely reasonable," and added, "My major concern is whether they will continue to be entirely reasonable given the unpredictable dynamics of the virus."
Vincent Rajkumar, MD. Oncologist at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.) and editor in chief of Blood Cancer Journal: "Revised CDC guidance on COVID-19 does not make sense. We are still losing 500 people a day to COVID. It's a big risk. It's like we are giving up. As a cancer doctor I am also worried for my vulnerable patients," Dr. Rajkumar wrote in a tweet.