Covid-19 Patients No Longer Need Tests to End Isolation

Most Americans recovering from Covid-19 can come out of isolation without further testing to show they no longer carry the coronavirus, federal health officials said on Wednesday.

Instead, patients may be judged to have recovered if 10 days have passed since they first felt ill; they no longer have any symptoms, such as shortness of breath or diarrhea; and they have not had a fever for 24 hours without taking fever-reducing medicine.

The new recommendations are not rules but guidelines intended for patients, doctors and health policymakers. The revisions should help relieve the burden on the country’s testing system, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Previously, one way to get out of isolation was to have two negative diagnostic tests, also called PCR tests, for the virus taken 24 hours apart. But now there are testing delays of up to two weeks in parts of the country, and numerous studies show that mildly ill people are almost never infectious 10 days after symptoms begin.