Why More People Than Ever Are Sick with COVID-19—but Fewer May Soon Be Calling in Sick

With caseloads climbing to levels that exceed previous “worst days” of the COVID-19 pandemic, the potential for significant damage to an already fraught supply chain and worker shortage across multiple industries is high. That includes urgent care centers, of course, as patients seeking refuge from the emergency room or a last-minute COVID test flock to understaffed locations across the country. A new recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers hope, however. Instead of a 10-day isolation period, the CDC now says it should be safe for people with asymptomatic COVID-19 to return to normal activities after 5 days—great news for urgent care centers whose staffing issues are due to having workers sidelined by infection. In addition, the CDC now says that people who are fully vaccinated and who’ve received a booster shot do not need to quarantine after exposure to COVID-19, provided they wear a mask around others for 10 days.