going out there and communicating the new guidance. as she did recently when they changed that isolation period. if you ve tested positive for covid-19. that is something that generated a lot of criticism, not just from people who are confused by it, jake, but also from doctors who said, yes, it did need a testing component to it. and so the other thing that we ve heard, jake, is this criticism is not just coming from outside the cdc. it s also coming from inside the cdc where it s a lot of career staffers who some of them have worked at the agency their entire lives. and they don t feel like sometimes when she is crafting the guidance here that she s really reaching out to enough people. they say it s too small of a circle of advisers that she s talking to. maybe they re not getting enough input for someone to say this isn t so reasonable or this may be a better way to implement this idea. this has been the issues we ve heard from sources, from officials within the cdc about this. whe
to do here is protect more people and save more lives, whether you work here or at the cdc or the fda. is the president okay with the fda making these authorizations without calling their panel of experts? again, the fda can speak to their decision making process. the florida surgeon general. what is the reaction to his comments that the u.s. needs to unwind its testing psychology? is that sound medical advice? i would point to our own health and medical experts and our focus on when they re more available and free to the public. is there any reason why the cdc did not include a testing component when it revised its guidance for isolation given that there is such a scarcity of tests? there s been criticism that the
more of them available to american households, putting them out in places like public libraries and community centers and so forth. they are very hard to come by. the question of if you have an asymptomatic case or a case with symptoms that resolve, do you need a test before you go back to the workplace or school or so forth? that testing component is one of the big questions. will that be required? we are waiting to hear. kelly, thank you very much. dr. patel, let me turn to you. help us sort through some of the legitimate concerns from some that may be overblown. when you look at where we are, the numbers, covid cases more than tripling, hospitalizations up by a smaller amount, 35%, deaths actually down 3%, help us put these numbers into context. what puts a pit in your stomach when you look at this? what do you think is being overwritten in the narrative here when it comes to covid that people may not have to stress so much about? i think let me start with that. what s being ove
we heard the cdc could soon add a testing recommendations to the five-day isolation guidance, was it a mistake to not include a testing component when they released the guidelines the other day? wolf, the virus is adapting. the omicron is an adaptation. we need to adapt also. that means changing recommendations in real time, and inevitably without all of the information we wish we had about severity and other factors. the cdc hasn t explained their decision. they are thoughtful decisions, they are judgment calls here, and frankly testing is not necessarily going to tell you yes, get out of jail free, you can go around without a mask. their guide wants was stop isolating after five days, but wear a mask. what is missing, i think, besides the explanation is how
when 20% of teachers and staff got sick or certain percentage of kids were out. i think that s going to be the case here, that most schools are going to find that they don t have adequate staffing to be able to keep schools going for a period of time. hopefully that will be short, and that the same kind of trajectory that we have seen in south africa with really rapid rise in transmission and then dramatic fall is what we ll see. and that hopefully it will be a matter of weeks, you know, before this starts to die down. dr. besser, given the enormous cost of keeping kids home from school, does this and should this factor in to decisions about quarantine times. one reason the cdc did shorten those quarantine times from 10 to 5 was to help address staffing shortages, not just in schools, but the airlines were putting help pressure on this during the holidays. now there is new discussion about adding a testing component after that five-day return. but should that be central to