COVID-19 is becoming more like the flu and, as such, no longer requires its own virus-specific health rules, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday alongside the release of a unified “respiratory virus guide.”
In a lengthy background document, the agency laid out its rationale for consolidating COVID-19 guidance into general guidance for respiratory viruses—including influenza, RSV, adenoviruses, rhinoviruses, enteroviruses, and others, though specifically not measles. The agency also noted the guidance does not apply to health care settings and outbreak scenarios.
“COVID-19 remains an important public health threat, but it is no longer the emergency that it once was, and its health impacts increasingly resemble those of other respiratory viral illnesses, including influenza and RSV,” the agency wrote.
The most notable change in the new guidance is the previously reported decision to no longer recommend a minimum five-day isolation period for those infected with the pandemic coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Instead, the new isolation guidance is based on symptoms, which matches long-standing isolation guidance for other respiratory viruses, including influenza.
Except that is not what is being reported, it not what managers will enforce, and it’s not what most people will do. It’s a poor decision because adding nuance will just make people ignore what they want to.
(1) Companies are going to do whatever they want, regardless; (2) the CDC “advice” was never anywhere close to binding; (3) they are real doctors - they know more about COVID and also other respiratory diseases than any of us here; but mostly what I wanted to say is (4) they did not make this decision entirely in isolation of all of the facts. They had a gun to their head, and it seems like they tried to do the best they were able given the circumstances.
But yes, I hear you, it is another victory for conservatives - and for some strange reason most Democrats as well - who want to pretend that the pandemic never happened. But it is not anywhere close to as bad as could have happened.