CDC changes guidance on amount of time around infected COVID patient

NEW YORK - “The CDC contradicts themselves every other day. I have no faith in anything they say,” said New Yorker Brenda Landrum.

Landrum says her head is spinning after learning the CDC has just revised its guidance, again. This time, the agency is saying that if you come into close contact with an infected person for just a few minutes at a time, but multiple times in the day totaling fifteen minutes, you could get COVID-19. The agency had previously said that you could get the virus if you were close to an infected person for fifteen minutes straight.

“This new guidance I’m going to be honest is confusing to people and I’m concerned that it just makes people want to throw their hands up in the air and say I don’t know what I should do,” said Dr. John Whyte, the Chief Medical Officer of WebMD. He doesn’t believe people should focus on how long they’ve been exposed to someone for, but rather on the activities that could put them at risk.  These revised guidelines stem from a new CDC report about a correctional officer who had several brief encounters with six inmates who all tested positive for COVID-19.

“The reality is it talks about the need to still practice what we’ve been doing which is that physical distancing, mask wearing, the handwashing and really minimizing exposure as best as you can,” said Dr. Whyte.

Just earlier this month the CDC changed another set of guidelines to say that you could get the virus through airborne transmission. Dr. Whyte reminds us that this virus is called the novel coronavirus. It’s so new –and medical experts are learning as they go.