Your questions, answered What should I do if I continue to test positive after the 10 days of isolation? I had a very mild case of covid, and the symptoms disappeared by the end of the initial 5 day isolation period. — Laurel B., Fla. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in late December reduced the recommended isolation period from 10 days to five days after symptom onset or a positive test. The guidelines posted online do not explicitly say what to do if you still test positive. But Kristen Nordlund, a CDC spokeswoman, confirmed that you can still leave isolation if your symptoms are improving and you are fever-free for 24 hours, even if you are still testing positive. Masking and avoiding high-risk people are still recommended through Day 10, regardless of test result. Some experts criticized the guidelines as spurred not by a changing understanding of the virus but political pressure to ease the burden on schools, businesses and hospitals reeling from massive staff callouts during an explosion of infections. Michael Mina, chief science officer at the digital health platform eMed, which provides telehealth consultations to people taking rapid tests, says the CDC should have required a negative test to leave isolation. "There's major variability across people and a lot of people are still infectious at 10 days," Mina said. You may have heard how people can test positive for coronavirus weeks or even months after getting sick. But Mina says that generally applies to PCR tests, which are far more sensitive than rapid tests, a better indicator of infectiousness. In the CDC's defense, Mina also acknowledges that people are usually less likely to spread coronavirus when their rapid test produces a faint line indicating a positive result later in their illness than a dark line that appears within minutes. "I understand there needs to be a balance," Mina said. "The most important time to isolate is when line is really dark. … Sometimes it just takes our immune system a few days to conquer the virus and get it to really light line." | 
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