‘Keep our society running’: Fauci defends cutting isolation time amid Omicron surge

Doctor says shut downs had “deleterious” effects on society

Dr Anthony Fauci has defended the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's decision to shorten the length of isolation time for those with a symptomatic Covid-19 from 10 days to five days.

Earlier this month, the CDC cut the suggested isolation period for individuals with asymptomatic Covid-19 from 10 days down to five days, a move that struck some critics as a US health agency bending to the will of industry rather than following science.

However, Dr Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said the CDC made the right call.

During a CNN appearance, Dr Fauci told host Jim Acosta: “With the sheer volume of new cases that we are having and that we expect to continue with Omicron, one of the things we want to be careful of is that we don't have so many people out.”

He said that anyone showing symptoms should stay home and seek medical attention if their symptoms worsen, but added that keeping all asymptomatic people home for 10 days would make it difficult for society to function.

"If you are asymptomatic and you are infected, we want to get people back to jobs - particularly those with essential jobs to keep our society running smoothly," Dr Fauci said, calling the CDC's decision “prudent”.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Dr Fauci again praised the CDC's decision, telling host Tiffany Cross that the call was correct and “based on science”.

“Instead of keeping people out of action, out of work, out of society, for 10 days, if you're infected and without symptoms then you have five days of isolation and then you can go back out into society with a mask worn consistently,” Dr Fauci said.

When pressed by MSNBC host Chris Hayes about whether any evidence existed to suggest that asymptomatic Covid-19 patients were no longer contagious after five days, Dr Fauci said that “nothing is going to be 100 per cent”.

“And this is one of those situations, when you're dealing with a very difficult situation, Chris, that we often say, you don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good,” the doctor said.

“The fact is that we know that when you're infected, early on in infection for the first several days, you have more of a likelihood to have a high level of virus and to be capable of spreading it," he said. "As you get into the second half of that 10-day period, we know that the virus in general – not for every [every] person for most of the time, for most of the people –that level of virus diminishes to the point where the CDC feels, and I don't disagree with them at all, that wearing a mask is ample protection during that second half of a 10-day period.”

Dr Fauci’s comments come just before the Omicron variant is expected to peak in the US. Omicron is the new dominant variant of the virus, and while it is not as severe as the Delta variant, it is much more transmissible. Health experts believe 60 per cent of Americans will eventually contract the virus, though most of those cases will be asymptomatic.

As the holiday season draws to a close and the expected Omicron peak approaches, Americans have been scrambling to find ways to get themselves tested, creating a nationwide shortage of Covid-19 tests. In addition to protecting themselves and their loved ones, many Americans are eager to get tested in order to return to work after being diagnosed with the virus.

The doctor said the only alternative to getting people back to work was to “shut down completely”, an option he said “no-one wants”.

In a different cable news interview, Dr Fauci said that widespread shut down has a “deleterious effect” going “well beyond the economy”.

“When you shut down the country, you have people who have other diseases who don't have the opportunity to get their HIV test, to get their HIV meds, to get their mammograms, to get the colonoscopies,” he said during a CNN appearance.