(Photo: Erik Mclean/Unsplash)
DeKalb, IL — The recommended length of quarantine after exposure to COVID-19 is shortening following an announcement from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new guidelines will allow those who have come in contact with someone infected with the virus to begin normal activity after 10 days, or 7 days if they receive a negative test result.
The CDC has previously recommended 14 days since the start of the pandemic.
Also, new research has found that recovered coronavirus patients likely have a strong enough immune memory that persists for at least eight months to fend off the virus and prevent illness.
The immune memory relies on antibodies and white blood cells known as T cells and B cells that have impressive powers of recollection. The layers combined allow the immune system to recognize and fight the coronavirus if close contact with it occurs again.
Shane Crotty, a virologist at La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California and a co-author of the study said she found that about 90% of people develop robust immunity to the coronavirus.
"Most people are making most parts of the immune response to this virus, and those parts are still around six to eight months later," Shane Crotty, a virologist at La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California and a co-author of the study, told Business Insider. "That looks like generally good news for having protective immunity.”