Staff Shortages Force Officials to Reduce American Healthcare Workers COVID Isolation Period

As hospitals prepare for Omicron’s rapid expansion and staffing shortages, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday reduced isolation periods for healthcare workers infected with Covid-19.

Following the C.D.C. advice, asymptomatic healthcare workers should be allowed to return to work after seven days and a negative test. The one-week isolation period can be reduced further in hospitals experiencing staffing Shortages.

The agency also affirmed there is no need to quarantine at home following high-risk exposures for workers who have received all required vaccine doses, including boosters.

The C.D.C. announcement is not new, as hospitals worldwide struggle to get staff back to work sooner. Multiple health officials have already implemented policies that include testing, vaccination status, symptoms, and a shorter time frame for isolation.

The United Kingdom went a step further by reducing all infected people’s isolation period from ten to seven days if they had twice tested negative with rapid antigen tests. A sentiment that many experts echo.

Recent research, including a published study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, discovered vaccinated individuals who get breakthrough infections “shed it [virus] for a shorter period than unvaccinated people who are infected.”

As the winter of Omicron sweeps across Quebec, will the province’s health leaders follow their counterparts and decrease quarantine for healthcare and the general public?