Essential NY Workers Exposed to COVID Can Forego Test After 5-Day Isolation If No Symptoms
Essential workers in New York who have been in contact with COVID-infected people can return to work without testing for the virus themselves as long as they spend five days in isolation and have no symptoms to show, health commissioner Mary Bassett said Monday
NEW YORK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th December, 2021) Essential workers in New York who have been in contact with COVID-infected people can return to work without testing for the virus themselves as long as they spend five days in isolation and have no symptoms to show, health commissioner Mary Bassett said Monday.
"New York will allow people to return to work after five days of isolation without testing," Bassett told a live-streamed media briefing. She added, however: "I just want to be really clear that this is not about sending back to work people who're sick. Having symptoms is probably your best test. People who are sick, at all times, should not be at work.
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The new rule is applicable to fully vaccinated essential workers.
The New York decision came after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut the length of time health care workers have to isolate after they test positive for COVID-19 from 10 to seven days.
US hospitals and their intensive care units are being swamped again with COVID-infected people amid a resurgence of the coronavirus prompted by the Omicron variant. Nearly three-quarters of new US COVID cases have been attributed to the Omicron, and as many as 90% in some areas such as the East Coast.