(Reuters) -The U.S. CDC on Friday dropped its five-day COVID-19 isolation recommendations under a new guidance, instead suggesting that people return to normal activities if symptoms improve and they are fever-free for at least 24 hours without needing medicines.
The guidelines had not been updated since December 2021, when CDC had shortened the recommended isolation time for Americans with asymptomatic cases to five days from 10 days.
“CDC is making updates to the recommendations now because the U.S. is seeing far fewer hospitalizations and deaths associated with COVID-19 and because we have more tools than ever to combat flu, COVID and RSV,” the agency said in a statement.
CDC data estimated nearly 92.3% of COVID-19 cases in the United States for the two weeks ending Saturday were caused by the sub-variant JN.1, classified as a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization.
“While COVID-19 remains a threat, today it is far less likely to cause severe illness because of widespread immunity and improved tools to prevent and treat the disease,” the agency said.
(Reporting by Mariam Sunny and Pratik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Shilpi Majumdar)
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