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(Omaha, NE) -- Changes to COVID-19 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are causing some confusion among Nebraskans.
“I do have some concerns about is 100% science based? Is it business and commerce based? I think this five day thing started with the medical profession, and I know that people need to be at work, I so get that, but, I was very surprised and confused," says Brenna Moray.
Moray has some questions for the CDC, especially after a family member tested positive for COVID-19 last weekend.
The questions follow the CDC cut the recommended number of days needed for isolation after testing positive for the virus in half. Recommended quarantine is now 5 days, instead of 10 days.
The CDC states the first five days after testing positive for the virus is where a person is most contagious. The CDC also recommends wearing a mask for the following five days after ending isolation.
Moray tells 6 News that her teenage daughter recently tested positive for COVID-19, in spite of her and her family being fully vaccinated. She says she'd like some clarification from the CDC on why the change has been made.
A local medical expert understands the confusion.
“[T]his is a little bit difficult to reconcile with the actual explosive transmission of omicron throughout many parts of the country, and I think a lot of people are having difficulty trying to understand right at this time when we’re seeing this spread so widely, why would we then decrease our period of time when we’re under isolation,” says Dr. Mark Rupp, Chief of Nebraska Medicine’s Infectious Disease department.
Rupp continues to say the following:
"Again I’m waiting to see some of that data to support these recommendations but having said that, they need to have recommendations that are based in science and also that people are able to follow. I think they’ve seen that longer periods of isolation at the end of that time period, where people are just as infectious, folks are just simply ignoring that advice."