(CNN)If you caught Covid-19 over the holidays — and with the highly contagious Omicron variant in circulation, record numbers of people did — you may be wondering what your next steps should be. Here’s what the experts say you should know.
I tested positive, but I feel fine. Should I still isolate?
The simple answer, said Dr. Graham Snyder, medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, is to follow the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
“They base those guidelines on, now, two years of observations about what it means to be contagious,” Snyder said.
That CDC guidance changed in the last days of December. It now says people who test positive for Covid-19 should isolate for five days. After that, if they don’t have symptoms or if their symptoms are resolving — they are without fever for 24 hours without taking fever-reducing medication — they should follow that with five days of wearing a mask around others. The CDC says it’s optional to take an antigen test on day 5; if it’s positive, you should stay in isolation until day 10.
That should minimize the risk of spreading the virus. The likelihood that someone is contagious after 10 days is small if their symptoms have improved and their fever is gone, the experts say.
“If you’ve had the infection and you’re feeling well and several days have gone by, the chances are very great you’re not contagious,” said Dr. Myron Cohen, director of global health and infectious diseases at the UNC School of Medicine.
