The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is no longer recommending universal COVID-19 case investigation and contact tracing, instead saying health departments should focus those efforts on specific high-risk settings.
According to CDC, a contact tracer was expected to quickly locate and speak with individuals who tested positive for the virus, find out who they have recently been in close contact with, and then notify those people about their exposure and encourage them to enter a 14-day quarantine to prevent further transmission.
The CDC now advises that state and local health departments should concentrate on “high-risk congregate settings,” such as long-term care facilities, jails and prisons, and homeless shelters. The updated guidance also states that case investigations should focus on cases and close contacts with exposures in the previous five days for those settings and groups at increased risk, such as those with underlying health conditions, pregnant women, and older adults.
Recent studies also suggest that Omicron may have an average incubation period of three days, shorter than any other variant. The incubation period is the amount of time between when someone is exposed to a virus and when symptoms begin to emerge.
Symptoms such as fever started to show about three days after the party. Researchers said this could indicate that Omicron is able to multiply so quickly that negative antigen test results become meaningless.