The CDC released guidelines for optional pathways to reducing the quarantine period for people exposed to SARS-COV2.
These include a reduction in the standard quarantine period from 14 days to 10 days for people who were exposed but remain asymptomatic for the disease. This is not without risk! Research has demonstrated that the risk for transmission from an exposed, asymptomatic person drops to approximately 1% (upper limit 10%) after 10 days.
Additionally, for exposed, asymptomatic persons with a negative test after day 5 from exposure, quarantine can be shortened to 7 days. This leaves a risk of transmission at approximately 5% (upper limit 12%).
The official announcement including a summary of research results can be found here.
Notice that the risk of transmission increases with a shortened quarantine period; however, calculated recommendations also help account for the benefits of quarantine reduction — ie. social interaction, economic health, and increased compliance. All public health mitigation is a constant dance of risk-benefit analysis; the same is true in shelter medicine.
Based on these recommendations and research in animals, we have updated our protocol for shelters to represent a reduction from a 14 day quarantine to a 10 day quarantine* for animals with known SARS-COV2 exposure; note, this quarantine applies from the last point of close contact to an infected person (in people, close contact is defined as within 6 ft for greater than 15 minutes/24hr period) .
Also note that as of 12/4/20 the CDC has NOT updated their recommendations for animals. As always, shelter veterinarians are advised to perform their own risk assessment for particular cases and situations.
*Note: Because testing is not currently recommended as a standard approach to exposed, healthy animals, the 7 day reduction was not applied to this protocol; however, limited laboratory studies support that dogs and cats have a very period of shedding (< 7 days) and so 7 days may be adequate for cats and dogs in the majority of cases. More research is needed in this area.
