Four years ago this month, the world went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Now, to treat COVID similarly to other respiratory viruses such as the flu, new CDC guidelines say isolation for those with COVID may end after 24 hours. The isolation period was five days, previously.  

On Friday, March 1, the CDC updated their COVID isolation guidelines to say “The recommendations suggest returning to normal activities when, for at least 24 hours, symptoms are improving overall, and if a fever was present, it has been gone without use of a fever-reducing medication.” 

IU Director of Public and Environmental Health Graham McKeen said he isn’t sure this is the right move, and the CDC may be too hopeful and premature with this change. 

“Now with a lot of these viruses, and with COVID, you’re most infectious very early on, but your viral load may peak as late as day four,” McKeen said. “And so there’s still some concern here, I think, very clearly. People are going to be able to go out, and still be infectious, and potentially infect others.” 

Freshman Felicity Garton tested positive for COVID Jan. 21 after going to a local urgent care with symptoms such as fatigue. 

The urgent care wrote her a prescription and said she could return to class after 24 hours. 

She was thankful, as she would have fallen behind in her classes if she had to isolate for five days, she said. 

“If I had to miss some of my classes, it would have been a lot harder to get on track,” Garton said. “Back when it was five days, that’s a whole week of school. So that’s way more inconvenient.” 

Freshman Averie Castro tested positive for COVID last month at the IU Student Health Center after she thought she had strep throat. 

She was provided some documents from the Health Center with guidance on isolation and managing the virus. She said she absolutely would have left isolation after 24 hours if the new guidelines had been in place, and she is slightly upset that wasn’t the case when she was sick. 

“I’m shocked,” Castro said. “It kind of makes me upset because I fell behind really badly in one of my classes. Fell behind in all of them really.” 

Under the new guidelines, the CDC still emphasizes good prevention measures, such as staying updated with the vaccines, practicing good hygiene and ensuring cleaner air, such as with an air purifier or open windows. 

If someone is symptomatic, the CDC recommends wearing a well-fitting mask, practicing social distancing and washing hands frequently. 

IU will defer to CDC guidance as always, McKeen said. 

“At IU, we always generally adopt or defer to CDC guidance,” McKeen said. “That’s what we had done when they moved to the five-day isolation period. And so, we will defer to this new CDC guidance. However, I think there’s still some concerns there with it. So, we’re going to manage it that way.” 

Students are still able to get tested at the Student Health Center and can self-report if they test positive. 

Free tests from the federal government ended Friday, March 8.