Enlarge (credit: Getty | Thomas Trutschel )

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is preparing to update its COVID-19 isolation guidance, moving from a minimum five-day isolation period to one that is solely determined by symptoms, according to a report from The Washington Post .

Currently, CDC isolation guidance states that people who test positive for COVID-19 should stay home for at least five days, at which point people can end their isolation as long as their symptoms are improving and they have been fever-free for 24 hours.

According to three unnamed officials who spoke with the Post, the CDC will update its guidance to remove the five-day minimum, recommending more simply that people can end their isolation any time after being fever-free for 24 hours without the aid of medication, as long as any other remaining symptoms are mild and improving. The change, which is expected to be released in April, would be the first to loosen the guidance since the end of 2021.

Enlarge / An MRI image of a brain with an abscess causing seizures. (credit: Getty | BSIP )

As pandemic restrictions eased, pediatricians around the country saw alarming upticks of rare brain abscesses in children under 18 years old, with national cases steeply climbing to a peak in December 2022. That's according to two studies led by researchers and health officials, which were published together Thursday in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Even at the height of the unusual surge, the brain infections remained rare overall, and the latest data suggests cases are on the decline. But, the infections are serious and potentially life-threatening. They occur when bacteria, viruses, or fungi enter the brain and an encapsulated area forms around the germs and pus. Bacteria, particularly Streptococcus , appeared to be the main culprit in the recent rise.

Enlarge / The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters stands in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday, March 14, 2020. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg )

The tally of COVID-19 cases linked to a conference of disease detectives hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in April has reached at least 181, the agency reported .

Roughly 1,800 gathered in person for this year's annual Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Conference, which was held on April 24 to 27 in a hotel conference facility in Atlanta where the CDC's headquarters are located. It was the first time the 70-year-old conference had in-person attendees since 2019. The CDC agency estimates an additional 400 attended virtually this year.

By the last day of the event, a number of in-person attendees had reported testing positive for COVID-19, causing conference organizers to warn attendees and make changes to reduce the chance of further spread. That reportedly included canceling an in-person training and offering to extend the hotel stays of sick attendees who needed to isolate.

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg | Getty Images )

Disease detectives with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are on the case of a new COVID-19 outbreak—the one at their very own conference, which has sickened around 35 attendees as of Tuesday.

Last week, the CDC hosted the 2023 Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Conference in Atlanta, the first time the conference has been held in person since 2019. The annual event, which dates back seven decades, was fully virtual last year and was canceled entirely in 2020 and 2021 while EIS officers were immersed in the pandemic response.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on everyone and especially for our public health workforce. … We are thankful you are back with us at the EIS conference," EIS leaders wrote in the preface of this year's conference agenda , celebrating the return of the in-person gathering.

Enlarge / Asian woman with protective face mask using smartphone while commuting in the urban bridge in city against crowd of people (credit: d3sign via Getty Images )

On March 28, 2020, as COVID-19 cases began to shut down public life in much of the United States, then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams issued an advisory on Twitter: The general public should not wear masks. “There is scant or conflicting evidence they benefit individual wearers in a meaningful way,” he wrote.

Adams’ advice was in line with messages from other US officials and the World Health Organization . Days later, though, US public health leaders shifted course. Mask-wearing was soon a pandemic-control strategy worldwide, but whether this strategy succeeded is now a matter of heated debate—particularly after a major new analysis, released in January, seemed to conclude that masks remain an unproven strategy for curbing transmission of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses.

“There’s still no evidence that masks are effective during a pandemic,” the study’s lead author, physician, and epidemiologist Tom Jefferson, recently told an interviewer.

Enlarge / Commuters in a subway in New York on October 25, 2022. (credit: Getty | Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto )

Health officials and experts are renewing calls for masking as respiratory illnesses surge and Americans prepare for holidays.

RSV infections in children appear to be cresting nationally after overwhelming children's hospitals for weeks, but they remain unseasonably high. Influenza-like illnesses also remain extremely high for this point in the year, with flu-like illnesses accounting for more than 1 in 13 visits to the doctor's office and hospitalizations continuing to rise. Respiratory infection transmission is high or very high in 42 states.

COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, meanwhile, are on the rise, signaling the potential start of a much-dreaded winter wave. According to data tracking by The New York Times, cases are up 56 percent over the last two weeks and hospitalizations, which typically lag behind case rises, are up 28 percent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting that about 9 percent of US counties have high COVID-19 Community Levels , which are based on case numbers and hospital capacity. An additional 35 percent of US counties reportedly have medium community levels.

Enlarge / "You do you" when it comes to masks on NY transit. (credit: MTA )

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority faced immediate backlash Thursday after unveiling a new mask-optional policy featuring the tagline "You do you" below a silly cartoon of a person improperly wearing a mask over just the nose, not the mouth.

Generally, the new policy lifts the MTA's previous requirement that riders wear a face mask—properly. Earlier signage showed a cartoon person correctly wearing a mask, with the tagline "That's the one!," after several examples of how not to wear a mask, including over just the nose. The requirement and the sign came with the slogan: "Stop the spread. Wear a mask."

Previous MTA signage for mask wearing. (credit: MTA )

But the new guidance dramatically flips the collective-effort messaging to a more individual-based approach to public health, with the slogan: "Masks are encouraged, but optional. Let's respect each other's choices." The new signage repeats the same cartoon examples of how not to wear a mask for protection, but now labels them all as acceptable.