The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday August 11, 2022, dropped its recommendations that people quarantine after being in close proximity to someone who has COVID-19

According to the CDC paper accompanying the announcement, the national public health agency has updated its rules because of a high level of immunity and to “limit social and economic impacts”. 

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Additionally, social distancing will no longer be compulsory as the CDC said that people no longer need to stay a minimum of six feet from each other. Instead of quarantining if exposed the COVID-19, the CDC suggests that people wear a high quality face mask and get themselves tested for COVID-19 on the fifth day as the virus is the most infectious in that time span. 

Earlier CDC guidelines encouraged unvaccinated people exposed to the virus to quarantine at home for five days while vaccinated people could venture out with a mask for 10 days.

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We’re in a stronger place today as a nation, with more tools—like vaccination, boosters, and treatments—to protect ourselves, and our communities, from severe illness from COVID-19,” said CDC official, Greta M. Massetti. According to her, the new guidelines “acknowledges that the pandemic is not over” but that “COVID-19 no longer severely disrupts our daily lives.”

The move has been met with mixed response. Some health care professionals are supportive of the new guidelines, while others on the Internet have tweeted their frustration over the announcement. 

“I’m sure there will be protest about this, but these revised guidelines seem to track with how people are actually living in the face of a virus that 1) is not disappearing and 2) seems to be finding even the most cautious among us,” tweeted professor of epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health, Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo.

Dr Judy Stone, who works as an infectious disease physician tweeted that the the CDC’s new guidelines were not a “welcome change”, calling it “Capitulation.”