CDC Revises Guidance For Discontinuing Home Isolation

On July 17, 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised its Discontinuation of Isolation for Persons with COVID-19 Not in Healthcare Settings interim guidance. This is the guidance upon which employers rely in determining when employees are safe to return to work after being sick with or testing positive for COVID-19. Significantly, the CDC changed the criteria to require that a person be fever-free for 24 hours versus the previous requirement of being fever-free for 72 hours. The CDC notes that its reduction in the isolation period is based on current data as analyzed in its decision memo.

Consequently, the updated symptom-based criteria for when an individual can leave home isolation (and thus return to work) is as follows: