Children Can Spread COVID for About Three Days, Study Finds

The study’s findings should prompt a reduction in the CDC’s isolation guidance, expert says.

A student's temperature is checked in California in a file image. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Children infected with COVID-19 were able to spread the illness for about three days, regardless of vaccination status, researchers have reported.

Researchers who tracked 76 children aged 7 to 18 in California found a median duration of infectivity of three days after a positive test result, according to a new study.

Neeraj Sood of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the other researchers recruited children who tested positive between April and September 2022. They obtained throat swabs during five home visits over 10 days and analyzed the swabs for infectivity.

No differences existed between unvaccinated, vaccinated, and boosted participants.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends people isolate for five days after a positive test, guidance that’s widely used by school districts and other settings.

“Our findings suggest that current policies requiring isolation for 5 days after a positive test might be appropriate, as the majority of children were not infectious by day 5. Additionally, return-to-school policies may not need to discriminate by vaccine or booster status,” Mr. Sood and his co-authors wrote.

The study was published by JAMA Pediatrics.

Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco, said the results should prompt a change in the CDC guidance.

“This study should lead the CDC to lower the period of isolation after a positive test for children to only 3 days (instead of 5 days) to avoid more days of missed schools given the prolonged school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.,” Dr. Gandhi, who was not involved in the research, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Jason McDonald, a spokesman for the CDC, indicated the CDC would not change its guidance.

“CDC, throughout the pandemic, has routinely reviewed its recommendations and updated them as science has evolved around COVID-19. CDC draws from the scientific literature to inform its recommendations,” Mr. McDonald said in an email.

He pointed to how the study’s authors said their findings suggested the current guidance might be appropriate.

Previous research on infectivity in the Omicron era among adults also found no link between vaccination status and duration of infectivity, as well as a median duration of infectivity of five days.

The CDC earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic recommended isolating for 10 days after testing positive for COVID-19. In late 2021, the agency shortened the time period to five days, regardless of vaccination status.

The CDC revised other guidance in 2022 but kept recommending people isolate after a positive test.

“People who are infected but asymptomatic or people with mild COVID-19 should isolate through at least day 5 (day 0 is the day symptoms appeared or the date the specimen was collected for the positive test for people who are asymptomatic),” the guidance states.

During a recent briefing with reporters, CDC official Dr. Demetre Daskalakis said, “we don’t foresee that there’s going to be a change in the isolation recommendations.”

Some other health agencies have revised their isolation guidance.

The Oregon Health Authority, for instance, announced in May that they were changing the five-day recommendation to staying home until fever-free for 24 hours.

“Oregon public health officials believe widespread population immunity due to vaccination and repeated infections means many COVID-19 infections are now likely asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, and the five-day isolation period is doing little to reduce transmission,” the agency said at the time.

Child Care Centers Play ‘Small Role’ in COVID Spread

In another study published this week, researchers with the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Michigan said they found child care centers play a “small role” in the spread of COVID-19.

The researchers conducted a prospective study from April 22, 2021, through March 31, 2022, of 11 childcare centers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The researchers followed 83 students and 21 child care workers with reported COVID-19 cases and measured whether the infections caused additional cases within the centers, and within households.

The transmission rates within the centers were identified as just 2 or 3 percent. In households, 17 percent of infections came from children who were believed to become infected within centers; the vast majority of household infections came from other sources.

Authors said the results should prompt discussion about changing other CDC guidance for children with respiratory symptoms such as a runny nose to test for COVID-19.

If they test positive, that triggers the five-day isolation guidance.

We need to have an open discussion at the national level about the benefit of recommending SARS-CoV-2 testing for every child with respiratory symptoms who attends a child care program,” Dr. Timothy Shope, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine and one of the authors, said in a statement. “No one wants to give up on controlling SARS-CoV-2 spread, but focusing on testing and long exclusion periods for children in child care centers appears to be unnecessary, while subjecting families to the expense of frequent testing, absence from work and lost wages, and loss of education and socialization for children.”