New CDC guidelines for quarantine and COVID testing; How they affect the local community

December 2, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines were updated once again, stating that anyone exposed to a positive COVID-19 person can have their quarantine end after Day 10 without testing and if no symptoms have been reported during daily monitoring. For those who are currently in quarantine, that means your quarantine time is decreased by four days as long as you are not showing any symptoms of COVID-19. Anyone with any symptoms must remain in quarantine and should then be tested.

If you choose, you can take a test on Day 5 or after following your exposure, and if negative, you can be off quarantine after day 7 following your exposure, again if no symptoms have developed. Once learning of your exposure to a COVID-19 positive person, you can look ahead and schedule your test for Day 5;  however it does take up to 72 hours to receive test results, so again you must remain on quarantine until that negative result is received.

“Our local hospitals are very busy testing symptomatic COVID-19 patients, so we are encouraging those with an exposure but no symptoms to contact Test Iowa to make an appointment for Day 5 following your exposure, or after,” stated Lisa Moose, Veterans Memorial Hospital Community and Home Care Public Health Director. You can go to www.testiowa.com to schedule the test.

The entire December 3, 2020 proclamation from Governor Reynolds explaining these new guidelines can be found at the following link: https://governor.iowa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Summary%20of%20E... The CDC does recommend that anyone exposed does complete the full 14 day quarantine, but these are now options for shortening that time frame, again if no symptoms of COVID-19 are present.