CDC updates guidance

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently updated its guidance for determining when health care personnel with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 may return to work.

Among the changes, for health care personnel with severe to critical illness or who are severely immunocompromised, the recommended duration for work exclusion is changed to at least 10 days and up to 20 days after symptom onset.

Further, the guidance includes a recommendation to consider consultation with infection control experts; adds an example applying disease severity in determining duration before return to work; and adds hematopoietic stem cell or solid organ transplant to severely immunocompromised conditions. CDC also makes similar updates to its guidance on when health care facilities may discontinue transmission-based precautions or discharge patients infected with SARS-CoV-2.

The agency said the changes more closely align with its recent decision memo on duration of isolation and precautions for adults with COVID-19.