Opinion: The CDC’s new, relaxed Covid isolation guidance makes perfect sense
The CDC’s new Covid isolation guidance reflects the best way to approach public health: as a balancing act of burdens and benefits.
What makes for good public health guidance? That’s the conversation I was having with a colleague in her 40s railing against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s erstwhile guidance about alcohol consumption for women of “childbearing” years. The guidance, if followed closely, would mean that all women ages 15 to 49 should fully abstain from alcohol consumption unless they’re using birth control. That’s more than 77 million women in the U.S. alone. The CDC guidance was finally archived last year, along with a similar proposal from the World Health Organization. For good reason: It’s absurd.
In four years of the Covid pandemic, we have seen lots and lots of guidance change over time. Most recently, the CDC has relaxed its recommendations about isolating after testing positive for Covid.
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