News Scan for Jun 28, 2022

Study: In most young adults, COVID-19 infectious period lasts only 5 daysA new study from researchers at Boston University (BU) shows that, for all but 17% of healthy, vaccinated young adults, the infectious period for COVID-19 from the Delta and Omicron variants was 5 days.

The study was recently published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.The study involved 92 SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR–positive participants who had all been fully vaccinated with an initial series of COVID-19 vaccine.

Tests showed 17 (18.5%) were infected with Delta and 75 (81.5%) with Omicron.The researchers conducted daily anterior nasal swabs for at least 10 days following a positive test for reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test and culture and with antigen rapid diagnostic testing (RDT) on a subset of individuals.

They found all but 17% of participants converted by day 6 and were no longer considered infectious.The authors of the study said their findings reaffirm the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, which says, following detection, COVID-19 patients should isolate for 5 days, then wear a mask when around others for another 10 days."As isolation can have a significant impact on both the economy of a country and the mental health of its citizens, it is imperative to make efforts to reduce isolation periods while simultaneously preventing infectious individuals from spreading the disease," said corresponding author Tara Bouton, MD, MPH, said in a press release.The authors said there was no differences seen in variants and length of time to convert, and in the study subset who used an antigen RDT in days 5 through 7 following diagnosis, RDT had perfect negative predictive value and sensitivity when compared to