Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of August 8

United States CDC eases Covid guidelines, noting virus is ‘here to stay’

People who are exposed to the virus no longer need to quarantine at home, regardless of their vaccination status, although they should wear a mask for 10 days and get tested for the virus on day 5, according to the new guidelines. Routine surveillance testing of people without symptoms is no longer recommended in most settings.

People who test positive for the virus should still isolate at home for at least five days, and the guidelines around masking — which recommend that people wear masks indoors in places where community Covid-19 levels are high — have not changed.

The changes signal a new phase of the pandemic, officials and experts said.

“We know that Covid-19 is here to stay,” Greta Massetti, a C.D.C. epidemiologist, said at a news briefing on Thursday. “High levels of population immunity due to vaccination and previous infection, and the many tools that we have available to protect people from severe illness and death, have put us in a different place.”