This.
Probably the reason I never caught it is always masking up and this change in guidance isn’t going to stop that at all.
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Covid is still the third leading cause of death in the US. It’s still highly highly contagious, and each exposure causes cumulative damage to your body and brain. There is only politics behind the new CDC guidelines, and no science. That is appalling.
Getting COVID as few times as possible should still be a priority for people.
N95 respirators can greatly reduce your exposure to airborne contaminants, including COVID-19. But they work best if they fit well. Because mask fit is very individual it may take you trying a couple of different models of N95 to find one that fits you well. The 3M Aura fits most but not all people well enough to pass a fit test. The draeger 1950 is also an excellent and comfortable N95 that fits many people well.
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the short term thinking of companies is so painful:
now there’s not just one employee sick, the whole office can be gasping for breath. hooray!
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This, so much this. I see it everywhere in my job, specifically in terms of being more concerned with the bottom line than they are customer retention.
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Many companies, including government offices, rely on the desire of people to not screw their co-workers because they are already running on a shoestring. Even if you have leave available, if you’re short staffed, someone will have to cover your assignments, and there isn’t always a warm body available. Do more with less!
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I really don’t think that’s the case (limits being lower than what’s safe. Safe for whom, exactly?) but it is the case that all car speedos overestimate your speed by maybe 2-4mph so you don’t get to sue the maker if you are done for speeding when the car’s speedo says 30mph. I.e. cars usually drive slower than what is deemed safe, if they stick to the posted limits.
Anyway, off topic, so back we go…
I agree this does not sound like a move the CDC, of all places, should be recommending.
But I can see that with high levels of vaccination / antibody resistance (yeah - a BIG assumption in the US), it is tempting (if this weren’t your fucking job CDC!) to say that with things as they are right now the risks are fairly low.
But there’s a real ratchet risk. Downgrade advice now and who is going to pay attention when the next Covid variant proves to be much more contagious and the CDC says ‘oops, back as you were, now’?
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Same.
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So, in related news, late-stage capitalism will kill us all anyway, we’re all just meat for the machine and should just quietly line up and proceed into the slaughterhouse in an orderly fashion.
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Safer than the safe cornering speed in a curve, for example
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Just for giggles, I looked at the CDC recommendations on two common, contagious diseases, strep (last updated 2022) and pinkeye (updated 2019). Both of them have the recommendations you probably know by heart - 24 hours or so after fever/symptoms/of taking antibiotics. I’ve managed people for 30+ years and would expect this as normal behavior for any worker.
COVID is a whole different world and, realistically, we’re still truly figuring out WTF it actually is plus it’s actively mutating still. In the past few months, I’ve had several people get COVID and I told them to stay home until they felt better. I’d rather run tight than get more people sick…already done that, thanks. I know most workplaces already have shrugged off the 5 day rule. Both of my kids, public school teachers, have been explicitly told to come in even if they have COVID.
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I just saw a post on reddit, someone said strep was going around the office and they caught it.
They were wondering if it was okay to go back to work because they had a project that need to be completed.
I guess they couldn’t figure out the reason it was going around the office is because people won’t stay home.
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Well, you know, it isn’t like it is still in the top five causes of death or anything.
/checks notes/
Oh! Oh. Well, forget about that change in guidance.
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Source?
For 2023 the CDC list it as 10th.
And here are the numbers just for Covid for the years it was being tracked:
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yeah, all that.
actual guaranteed vacation would help. give people vacay, require them to take it, and it would require hiring more people to cover the flexibility of that time ( and sick days! )
of course, companies (incorrectly) think it hurts the bottom line. not realizing it gains them productivity by increasing well-being.
( in that list, even japan has 16 national holidays! )
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Well, sure, bring facts into this. (Boy, it takes a while to get that data out of the CDC site doesn’t it?)
Well, it is still in the top 10, and is within our power to limit the spread, shouldn’t we?
I mean, do you really want to be sat down in a restaurant one table over from someone who knows they are positive, and is coughing away?
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Oh, for fuck’s sake 
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It was momentarily reassuring to listen to the “Here and Now” NPR host and his guest Dr. Peter Hotez pushing back on the CDR by advocating for an evidence-based guideline (RAT+ implies infectious) and for non-dumbed-down public health messaging from the CDC:
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I just looked it up, too. Covid is the 10th leading cause of death at 49,608, just slightly more than influenza, at 44,613.
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That’s kind of what the new rules would do. The proposed guidelines would recommend isolating until you have been fever free and having only mild and improving symptoms for at least 24 hours. That’s because once symptoms are mild and improving, the chances of infecting others decrease significantly. And most people who are vaccinated and catch the virus have milder symptoms, recover more quickly, and become less infectious more quickly than those who aren’t.
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As someone who’s never had it, I’ll keep right on masking; thanks.
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