Anthony Fauci on Thursday defended the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) decision to cut its recommended isolation time to five days for people infected with COVID-19 who are asymptomatic.
Fauci said there was a need to cut the isolation period for asymptomatic people to keep society running as the nation is hit with the highly contagious omicron variant.
“The reason is that now that we have such an overwhelming volume of cases coming in, many of which are without symptoms, there’s the danger that this is going to have a really negative impact on our ability to really get society to function properly,” Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said in an interview on NewsNation’s “Morning in America.”
“The CDC made a decision to balance what’s good for public health at the same time as keeping the society running,” he continued, adding that the CDC “thought it out well” though the decision was not “100 percent risk-free.”
Fauci said people leaving isolation after five days who are asymptomatic should mask diligently around others and when they return to work.
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