The United States surpassed 93 million COVID-19 cases today. According to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, there have been 93,026,190 cases resulting in 1,037,451 deaths representing a mortality rate of 1.1%.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations continue to fall slowly but steadily fall with 36,146 hospitalizations as of August 13th according to Our World in Data. Hospitalizations had surpassed 40,000 on July 27th but have been falling since.
In the midst of declining hospitalizations, the CDC announced changes to its guidelines a couple of days ago. For starters, unvaccinated individuals who get exposed to COVID do not need to quarantine at home but recommend wearing a mask for 10 days and get tested after 5 days. Chances are if you're unvaccinated by this point you're probably not going to wear a mask much less get tested.
If one does test positive, the CDC recommends isolating for five days regardless of vaccination status. Isolation can end if one is fever free without the use of medication for 24 hours, are without symptoms or are improving. A 10 day isolation is recommended if shortness of breath, a compromised immune system or hospitalization occurs. Testing and consulting a physician is also recommended. If symptoms recur for those in the latter category, another 10 day isolation period is strongly recommended.
My guess is that cases will start to surge again, but that the guidelines will remain so long as hospitalizations continue to fall or remain steady.
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