U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra defended federal COVID isolation guidelines Monday that California earlier this month announced it was deviating from to shorten the amount of time people who test positive should stay home — a change that so far hasn’t led to a new spike in cases.
California officials earlier this month shortened the recommended isolation period following a positive COVID-19 test from five days to one — 24 hours without fever.
But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend that people who test positive for COVID-19 isolate for five days.
“The CDC’s information is guidance, it is not mandatory, it is the best judgment of the experts who have been reviewing the evidence and data on what COVID is doing,” Becerra, secretary of Health and Human Services, said in an interview Monday with the Bay Area News Group during a stop in San Jose.
“States sometimes adopt it completely, oftentimes they don’t,” Becerra said. “States run their health care systems, we don’t. . . It’s up to them to decide what to do for their people. And we hope that they at least look at the guidance. We hope that they would heed the guidance. And we intend to be partners as they determine how to move forward.”
The California Department of Public Health said the Jan. 9 change was to better align the state’s guidance with that for other respiratory illnesses like RSV and influenza. The department cited the lower threat of severe illness and death from the virus.
“The reason for these changes is that we are now at a different point in time with reduced impacts from COVID-19 compared to prior years,” the California Department of Public Health said.
The CDC’s guidance was last updated May 11, 2023. That’s the same day Oregon became the first state to move away from that guidance and adopt guidance similar to what California started recommending this month.
The changes in Oregon and California were noteworthy because both states had adopted aggressive measures after the pandemic hit in 2020 to prevent the virus’ spread, including requirements to wear masks in public and social distancing rules. California was the first state to issue a statewide lockdown order and among the last states to fully reopen schools and businesses.
Florida and Texas health authorities, by contrast, have continued to refer to the CDC’s guidance on isolation, though they had moved quicker to reopen and avoided mask and distancing guidance.
Some experts questioned California’s January’s guidance shift, coming during a winter peak of COVID-19 infections. But it doesn’t seem to have slowed or reversed a decline in hospitalizations or positive tests since. Data from the California Department of Public Health show COVID-19 hospitalizations are down 26% from Jan. 1 to Jan. 20, while the rate of positive tests has declined from 12.1% on Jan. 1 to 10.6% on Jan. 22.
California’s 6,911 COVID deaths in 2023 were the fewest since the pandemic began in 2020, less than half the 20,870 in 2022.
But Becerra said that’s no reason to be cavalier about COVID’s potential threat, and he urged people to stay “up to date” on COVID-19 vaccines, which he said remain available at no cost.
“COVID’s still out there, no one should mistake that,” Becerra said. “We are fortunate that all of the more recent variants … haven’t been more intense or more severe in the illness that they cause. But one of those variants could just be right around the corner and the more we have people who are not up to date, the more they place themselves in harm’s way.”
Staff data reporter Harriet Blair Rowan contributed to this story.