U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra speaks with Mercury News members on Monday, January 29, 2024, at the Mercury News offices in downtown San Jose, California. (Nat V. Mayer/Bay Area News Group)
U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra on Monday defended federal coronavirus isolation guidelines that California announced earlier this month would be departing from a policy that shortened the amount of time people who test positive should stay at home. So far, the changes have not led to a spike in new cases.
California officials earlier this month shortened the recommended quarantine period for people who test positive for the coronavirus from five days to one day (24 hours without a fever).
but The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend Anyone who tests positive for the new coronavirus must quarantine for five days.
“The CDC information is guidance, not mandate. It is the best judgment of experts who have considered the evidence and data on the impact of the coronavirus,” Health and Human Services Secretary Becerra said in an interview Monday. Bay Area News Group in San Jose.
“Sometimes states fully adopt it, and often they don’t,” Becerra said. “States run the health care system, we don’t. … It’s up to them to decide what to do for the public. And we hope they at least look through the guidance.” We hope they will follow the guidance. And we will be a partner in determining how they move forward.”
of The California Department of Public Health announced the changes on January 9th. The goal was to better align state guidelines with those for other respiratory illnesses, such as respiratory syncytial virus and influenza. The ministry cited the low threat of severe illness or death from the virus.
“The reason for these changes is that we are now at a different point in time when the impact of COVID-19 is less severe than in previous years,” the California Department of Public Health said.
The CDC guidance was last updated on May 11, 2023. Oregon becomes the first state to move away from that guidance. and adopt similar guidance that California began recommending this month.
The changes in Oregon and California are noteworthy. Both states took aggressive measures to prevent the spread of the virus after the pandemic began in 2020, including mandatory mask-wearing in public and social distancing rules. California was the first state to issue a statewide lockdown order and one of the last to fully reopen schools and businesses.
In contrast, health officials in Florida and Texas continue to cite CDC guidance on quarantine, even as they moved more quickly to reopen and avoided mask and distancing guidance.
Some experts questioned California’s January guidance changes, which came during the winter peak of coronavirus infections. Since then, however, there appears to be no slowing or reversal of the decline in hospitalizations or positive tests. California Department of Public Health data The number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 decreased by 26% from January 1st to January 20th, and the test positivity rate decreased from 12.1% on January 1st to 10.6% on January 22nd. It shows.
California’s 6,911 coronavirus deaths in 2023 are the lowest since the pandemic began in 2020, and less than half the 2022 death toll of 20,870.
But Becerra said that’s no reason to be complacent about the potential threat posed by the coronavirus, urging the public to “stay informed” about the coronavirus vaccine, saying He said it is still available for free.
“The coronavirus still exists. No one should misunderstand that,” Becerra said. “We’re fortunate that none of the recent variants have had more or less severe disease symptoms. We may be getting there, and the more people who don’t know the latest information, the more dangerous they are putting themselves in.”
Staff Data reporter Harriet Blair Rowan contributed to this article.