CDC says recommended quarantine time after COVID-19 exposure may be shortened to 7 or 10 days, down from 14

The U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reduced the recommended days a person must quarantine after coronavirus exposure from 14 days to seven or 10 days.

The new guidelines announced Wednesday say people who have close contact with an infected person can end their quarantine after seven days if they receive a negative test or after 10 days without a test.

The CDC defines close contact as 15 minutes total spent 6 feet or closer to an infected person.

Dr. Henry Walke, incident manager for the CDC’s COVID-19 response, said people should still monitor for symptoms 14 days after exposure. 

The CDC based its decisions on study data and modeling by the agency and other outside institutions, Walke said. He said 14 days of quarantine remains the optimal period of time, but seven to 10 days is a good alternative. 

A meta-analysis of 1,500 studies from 2003 to June 2020, including 79 SARS-CoV-2 studies, published in The Lancet Microbe in mid-November found that infectiousness and virus shedding lasts only about 10 days after symptoms begin.

“Patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection are likely to be most infectious in the first week of illness,” study authors wrote.

Walke hopes reducing the length of quarantine will result in more Americans complying with isolation recommendations and other public health actions, such as cooperating with contact tracers. 

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"Reducing the length of quarantine may make it easier to take this critical public health action by reducing the economic hardship associated with a longer period, especially if they cannot work during that time," he said during a media briefing. "In addition, a shorter quarantine period can lessen stress on the public health system and community, especially when new infections are rapidly rising."

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said that if a person doesn't develop COVID-19 at least 10 days after exposure to the virus, they're increasingly unlikely to develop it at all. 

“The science has evolved to the point where we’re comfortable with the 10-day quarantine period," he said. "It's a good move. ... It'll likely make it much easier for people to comply with." 

CDC spokesperson Benjamin Haynes told USA TODAY the agency doesn't fear quarantine compliance will  wane. He said the agency is trying to target people who are pressured out of quarantine, not of people who choose to opt out for other reasons. 

"We are trying to reach those people who are in that contemplation phase where the shorter time frame is more attractive and are willing to quarantine," he said. "Unfortuantely, people who won’t quarantine will continue to not quarantine."

The announcement comes after several outlets reported CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield informed Vice President Mike Pence and White House Coronavirus Task Force members of the changes.

According to CNN, one official said Pence had been pushing the CDC for months to review the guidelines.

The U.S. follows some European countries that have shortened the recommended quarantine time.

In September, France reduce self-isolation time for COVID-19 from 14 days to seven days because it’s the period “when there is a real risk of contagion,” said French Prime Minister Jean Castex. Germany also reduced self-isolation time for travelers coming into the country high-risk zones to 10 days, according to a government website. 

Contributing: Associated Press. Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.

Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.