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☆ CDC updates Covid isolation guidelines for people who test positive
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-01 | by ( Erika Edwards | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

People who test positive for Covid no longer need to isolate for five days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. Many doctors have been urging the CDC to lift isolation guidance for months, saying it did little to stop the spread of Covid. The experiences of California and Oregon, which previously lifted their Covid isolation guidelines, proved that to be true. "Recent data indicate that California and Oregon, where isolation guidance looks more like CDC's updated recommendations, are not experiencing higher Covid-19 emergency department visits or hospitalizations," Jackson said. Changing the Covid isolation to mirror what's recommended for flu and other respiratory illnesses makes sense to Dr. David Margolius, the public health director for the city of Cleveland.

Persons: you've, Mandy Cohen, Cohen, Covid, Dr, Brendan Jackson, Jackson, David Margolius, We've, Kristin Englund Organizations: Centers for Disease Control, Prevention, National Center, CDC, Cleveland Clinic Locations: United States, California, Oregon, Cleveland

WASHINGTON, May 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday it would stop reporting or monitoring COVID-19 case data and transmission rates after the government ends the pandemic's public health emergency designation next week. The government on May 11 will end the COVID-19 public health emergency that allowed millions of Americans to receive vaccines, tests, and treatments at no cost during the pandemic. "The changes that we're discussing today are happening because the end of the Public Health Emergency means that CDC will have less authority to collect certain types of public health data," said CDC Principal Deputy Director Dr. Nirav Shah. The CDC will continue to provide COVID death rates but will no longer rely on aggregate case data reported by local jurisdictions and will instead use national death certificate data, Jackson said. COVID-19 surveillance will be folded into a wider integrated strategy for monitoring respiratory viruses, he said, adding that some data reporting including demographic case data, the CDC's work on long COVID, and wastewater surveillance for the virus will continue past May 11.

☆ CDC will have less data to track Covid and new variants after public health emergency ends
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

"The end of the public health emergency means CDC will have less authority to collect certain types of public health data — that means less data will be available to us," Dr. Nirav Shah, the CDC's principal deputy director, told reporters during a call Thursday. Congress required these labs in March 2020 to send results to the federal government, but that mandate was tied to the public health emergency. "In some of the jurisdictions or some of the states those authorities will go away with the end of public health emergency," he said. The spotty reporting of case data also means the CDC will no longer report virus transmission at the county level after the public health emergency ends. Shah said the CDC will still have ways to monitor Covid after the public health emergency ends.

☆ Updated Covid boosters cut the infection risk from XBB.1.5 subvariant by half, CDC finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Berkeley-Lovelace-Jr.Jpg | Berkeley Lovelace Jr. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

The updated Covid boosters reduce the risk of Covid infection from the predominant omicron subvariant by nearly half, according to early data published Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings are “quite reassuring,” Dr. Brendan Jackson, the head of the CDC’s Covid response, said on a call with reporters Wednesday. As of last Wednesday, only about 15% of people in the U.S. had received an updated booster, according to CDC data. People who were vaccinated but had not received the updated booster were compared to those who got the updated booster in the previous two to three months. People who got the updated boosters are probably "much more likely to wear masks indoors or restrain their travel or not go to indoor restaurants," he said.

"Today we have additional evidence to show that these updated vaccines are protecting people against the latest COVID-19 variants," Dr. Brendan Jackson, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID-19 response, told reporters in a briefing. Released last fall, the updated boosters target the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which are no longer dominant. It showed that the updated vaccine helped prevent illness in roughly half of the people who had previously received two to four doses of the original COVID-19 vaccine, CDC said. The CDC said the updated vaccine worked similarly against BA.5-related infections and XBB/XBB.1.5-related infections. Given the findings, the CDC urged people to stay up to date on their recommended COVID-19 vaccines.

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