| Take the latest from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which since the start of the pandemic has been providing a master class in how to confuse the American public. For a long time, the agency recommended that Americans who test positive for COVID-19 quarantine for 10 days.
We now know that most infected people are not contagious for that long—here's a great thread about testing and contagiousness that elaborates on this. Which means that officials have been asking many people to disrupt their lives for days longer than is necessary.
We've known this for a while. So, last week—finally—the CDC shifted course from its 10-day recommendation, saying five days of isolation were sufficient.
"People with COVID-19 should isolate for 5 days and if they are asymptomatic or their symptoms are resolving (without fever for 24 hours)," the updated CDC guidance says. "The change is motivated by science demonstrating that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs early in the course of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after."
Great, right?
Welllllll…kind of. The agency forgot to include in its advice one important step: a negative COVID-19 test. Meanwhile, it did include some scientifically dubious (or at least incomplete) advice.
The CDC says infected people should follow isolation with "5 days of wearing a mask when around others to minimize the risk of infecting people they encounter." But cloth masks, no matter how well-fitting, likely aren't enough to stop transmission. Even common surgical masks may not do that; for effective mitigation, N95 masks are where it's at. Still, officials refuse to say much about what types of masks people should wear, instead preferring the simple but potentially dangerous message that general masking is protective. This gives people a false sense of security and—if they've read much about transmission and masking—makes the agency seem scientifically unreliable.
Meanwhile, something that actually is consequential for determining—and stopping—potential contagiousness is whether a rapid antigen test comes back negative. Yet this was left out of the CDC's updated advice last week.
Now, top White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci says the CDC is considering updating its recommendation to say that a five-day isolation period and a negative rapid test are recommended.
The paucity of rapid tests in America may explain why the CDC didn't put that in its new guidance already. Unlike in Europe, rapid tests here remain hard to come by and relatively expensive. And why? Once again, we can blame the federal government. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been painfully slow to approve new rapid tests.
Regardless of why the CDC didn't recommend testing before ending isolation, the result is once again making the agency appear wavering and unsure.
The oversight—and potential correction—marks the latest in a line of questionable CDC guidance, regarding everything from how the virus spreads to masking to what to do if you are infected. Since the start of the pandemic, messaging from the CDC and other government actors has been confused and confusing. At every step, it seems the agency has managed to undermine public confidence or put politics over clarity.
Is it any wonder many Americans aren't keen to simply "trust the experts" anymore?
(If you'd prefer to end on a more positive note, here's The New York Times with some ways that this point in the pandemic is not the same as two years ago and some reasons for hope.) | 
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