Jackson County HD needs to Update their COVID Exposure Quarantine Guidelines
Jackson County HD needs to Update their COVID Exposure Quarantine Guidelines
It is time for the Jackson County Health Department to update their COVID quarantine guidelines for individuals in close contact with a COVID positive individual. Currently, they strictly enforce a 14 day quarantine, despite the CDC having updated guidelines. Please read the below CDC information. If Jackson County makes this change, schools can update their guidelines and healthy children can get back in the classroom! I encourage those within Jackson County and surrounding areas to sign and show support!
Per the CDC site:
Quarantine is intended to reduce the risk that infected persons might unknowingly transmit infection to others. It also ensures that persons who become symptomatic or are otherwise diagnosed during quarantine can be rapidly brought to care and evaluated. However, a 14-day quarantine can impose personal burdens that may affect physical and mental health as well as cause economic hardship that may reduce compliance. Implementing quarantines can also pose additional burdens on public health systems and communities, especially during periods when new infections, and consequently the number of contacts needing to quarantine, are rapidly rising. Lastly, the prospect of quarantine may dissuade recently diagnosed persons from naming contacts and may dissuade contacts from responding to contact tracer outreach if they perceive the length of quarantine as onerous.
Reducing the length of quarantine will reduce the burden and may increase community compliance. Shortening quarantine may increase willingness to adhere to public health recommendations.
Per the CDC, there are 2 options for shortened quarantine (both of which still include no clinical evidence of COVID-19 has been elicited by daily symptom monitoring during the entirety of quarantine up to the time at which quarantine is discontinued; and daily symptom monitoring continues through quarantine Day 14):
1. Quarantine can end after Day 10 without testing and if no symptoms have been reported during daily monitoring.- With this strategy, residual post-quarantine transmission risk is estimated to be about 1% with an upper limit of about 10%.
2. When diagnostic testing resources are sufficient and available, then quarantine can end after Day 7 if a diagnostic specimen tests negative and if no symptoms were reported during daily monitoring. The specimen may be collected and tested within 48 hours before the time of planned quarantine discontinuation (e.g., in anticipation of testing delays), but quarantine cannot be discontinued earlier than after Day 7. - With this strategy, the residual post-quarantine transmission risk is estimated to be about 5% with an upper limit of about 12%.”