The Macon County Department of Public Heath no longer requires COVID19 patients to have two negative tests to be moved from the active list to the recovered list.
According to MCPH Public Information Officer, Emily Ritter, the local department updated their guidelines to fall into line with changes within the CDC made on July 20.
Originally, someone who tested positive for COVID19 would be retested after 10 days and would have to have two negative tests 24-48 hours apart before being considered recovered. Now, patients are considered recovered without additional testing.
CDC updates as of July 20, 2020:
- A test-based strategy is no longer recommended to determine when to discontinue home isolation, except in certain circumstances.
- Symptom-based criteria were modified as follows:
- Changed from “at least 72 hours” to “at least 24 hours” have passed since last fever without the use of fever-reducing medications.
- Changed from “improvement in respiratory symptoms” to “improvement in symptoms” to address expanding list of symptoms associated with COVID-19.
- For patients with severe illness, duration of isolation for up to 20 days after symptom onset may be warranted. Consider consultation with infection control experts.
- For persons who never develop symptoms, isolation and other precautions can be discontinued 10 days after the date of their first positive RT-PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 RNA.
A summary of current evidence and rationale for these changes is described in the Duration of Isolation and Precautions for Adults with COVID-19.
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