journalism at Arizona state
university.
Amna: The centers for disease
control and prevention has
changed its covid guidance for
when people need to isolate.
It is part of the CDC's broader
recommendations on respiratory
illnesses.
It says that people that have
tested positive can return to
normal activities when symptoms
are improving and they have been
fever free for 24 hours without
medication.
It also encourages people with
improving symptoms to take
additional prevention methods
like mask wearing and keeping
distance and public.
The director joins me now.
Welcome back to the newshour.
Thank you for joining us.
This is the first time you have
shifted guidance, isolation
guidance, since 2021 when it was
reduced to five days.
Why these changes in guidance
now?
>> We are in a different place.
It is after a lot of hard work
make sure we have the tools to
protect each other against
covid.
What we have been seeing is
lower hospitalizations and lower
deaths though we saw high levels
of virus spread.
This last winter we saw in our
wastewater data and others that
there is a lot of virus
spreading and our community but
the trends in hospitalizations
and death continue to go down.
But we are seeing is that
vaccination is what is
continuing to protect folks so
we wanted to going to fight our
guidance today not just for
covid but across covid, flu and
rsv so folks can have practical
solutions they could use every
day that they can remember and
implement across a range of
viruses.
Amna: There were some states
like California and Oregon that
began relaxing their covid
isolation guidance as early as
last year counter to your
guidance at the time.
Is this the CDC catching up to
where people have already been
for a while?
>> We were looking at this
guidance last summer and seeing
if we could move in this
direction.
And then the virus changed last
August.
We wanted to make sure that we
were through another winter
season and that the trends in
lower hospitalizations and
deaths continued to hold and the
good news is they did.
We feel comfortable moving
forward but like always, the
virus is changing.
If anything changes in terms of
our effectiveness of treatment,
we may be back here needing to
change guidance.
We feel comfortable aligning
across covid, flu and rsv for
simple solutions like
vaccination and staying home
when you're sick.
Amna: The cases of covid have
fallen dramatically but the data
shows there are still hundreds
of people dying every week from
covid.
Some 20,000 hospitalized weekly.
This guidance change has its
critics including Dr. Eric coble
.
He said the policy change is
reckless.
He says it will serve to promote
more spread of covid and long
covid.
>> I want to say, remember
vaccines and treatment continue
to protect folks.
This last season at the
beginning, we saw that 95% of
the people coming to the
hospital did not have an updated
covid vaccine and 70% did not
have the one from the year
before.
What we are seeing is vaccines
can protect us from going to the
hospital or having our life be
taken by the virus.
We have to use those tools.
You also know that far too few
adults got the updated covid
vaccine, only about 22% of
adults. The updated covid
vaccine.
We need to see folks using that
important tool to protect
themselves.
Amna: To be fair, the vaccine
can prevent serious illness but
it does not prevent the spread
of covid.
Will people isolating for a
shorter amount of time add to
the spread of the virus?
>> When you get vaccinated you
are less likely to go to the
hospital but you are also less
likely to get long covid and
less likely to get this virus
overall.
Less virus spreading means we
are protecting others.
We wanted to give simple, clear
kinds of guidance so folks can
remember them and it can be
actionable.
If more people are using the
guidance, we think that will
benefit everyone.
The vulnerable folks were top of
mind for us at the as we were
thinking about this guidance.
We all know someone that is at
higher risk.
I have them in my own family.
We were thinking about them as
we did this guidance.
We think we found the balance to
protecting the most vulnerable
and having those clear and
simple way for most folks to
protect themselves.
Amna: You said this week that
Americans 65 and older should
get an additional dose of the
latest covid vaccine that
spring.
Do you worry about relaxing the
guidance at the same time you
are asking people to get a
booster is sending conflicting
messages?
>> The first core strategy that
we want to emphasize to folks is
about being up-to-date on your
vaccines.
Vaccines are what we continue to
see protecting folks.
We want to make sure that folks
are getting the updated
vaccines.
I want to preview that we know
the covid virus continues to
change.
We need to stay ahead of it.
We have already started the
process, CDC and fda, to update
the covid vaccine for later this
year.
Right now, folks should start
planning for this fall to get an
updated covid vaccine and an
updated flu shot.
Amna: Dr. Mandy Cohen, the CDC
director.
Thank you for joining us.
Good to speak with you.
♪♪