The CDC’s reckless decision to stop recommending at least 5 days of isolation for COVID is an abandonment of prevention and a betrayal of its public health mission. The new guidelines ignore massive scientific evidence that people are often contagious longer than 5 days, and often without symptoms.

This change means people will be increasingly pressured to work and attend school while infected, whether symptomatic or not, putting many more at risk, and letting COVID run rampant. Long Covid is a global crisis, and dropping a powerful mitigation tool will fuel this mass disabling event

We are providing you with one general letter and one editable letter. Write to President Biden. Ask everyone to do the same.

Under this new guideline, people who are contagious may decide to skip isolation even if they’re testing positive -- just not having a fever, which has no bearing on infectiousness.

CDC has noted that its weak new isolation policy won’t apply to healthcare settings “with more vulnerable populations.” But the truth is: we are ALL vulnerable to COVID and Long COVID!

We are in the 5th year of this pandemic and we are seeing athletes and healthy young people dropping dead, having cardiac arrest, or becoming debilitated with post-viral conditions that affect multiple organ systems. If you are not vulnerable, COVID might make you vulnerable.

It’s simply reckless to let the virus go unconstrained in public spaces including transportation, workplaces, schools, stores, and senior centers, forcing infections on people!

In addition to the 1.2 million US COVID deaths from this pandemic, nearly 1 in 4 American adults who get COVID suffer from Long COVID. An estimated 31% of that huge population have developed disabilities. The highest rates of Long COVID are among people in their 30s and 40s. Long COVID doesn’t spare children either. Since about one-fifth of US COVID cases are in children, and 10% to 20% of those endure Long COVID, the wide range of persistent symptoms and conditions already affects as many as 5.8 million children (Pediatrics).

The best current evidence and science indicate:

• Asymptomatic transmission is common.
• A person infected with COVID is contagious before symptoms start.
• At-home tests aren’t sensitive for early stage COVID, so a person who tests positive is probably highly contagious.
• Infected people are infecting immunocompromised people and members of the high-risk community across the nation, and gravely endanger highly vulnerable populations.
• It only takes one infected person to cause an outbreak.
• Many studies show that people of all ages with COVID can be contagious beyond 5 days.
• Repeated infections increase the likelihood that people of any age will develop some of a long list of “Post-COVID Conditions” and symptoms, which the CDC’s website details for medical providers.

Mitigation is about health equity and community. We need the CDC to work with Congress and state governments to expand wastewater surveillance for viral activities to cover all the states and provide Americans with proper warnings. We need the CDC to educate the public about the combined benefits of vaccination, masks, ventilation, tests, isolation and treatment. Instead of weakening the isolation policy, which would give employers excuses to force workers to push through sickness and return to work when their bodies need time to fight this horrible virus, the CDC should support extended paid sick leave policies.

Please support this letter campaign. Ask Biden to overturn CDC’s attempt to normalize COVID-19 and Long Covid now.