CDC Eyeing Shorter Pandemic Quarantine Restrictions
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Commissioner Robert Redfield speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on November 19, 2020 in Washington, DC. The White House held its first Coronavirus Task Force briefing in months as cases of COVID-19 are surging across the country ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering imposing a shorter amount of time in quarantine for people who may have been exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This decision is being considered in hopes of convincing more people to follow its advice.

The CDC is finalizing rules to shorten the quarantine period for a potentially exposed person.

This from 14 days to seven to 10 days, as reported by The Hill.

The move was announced by a senior CDC official, Henry Walke.

Walke is the CDC's COVI-19 incident manager.

He said that the agency would recommend that someone quarantining for the shorter period of time also receive a negative test.

"We do think that the work that we've done, and some of the studies we have and the modeling data that we have, shows that we can with testing shorten quarantine," Walke was quoted on The Hill report.

A CDC spokesman said that the agency is considering making a change to its quarantine measures.

However, there are still no final decisions laid on the table.

CDC spokesman Benjamin Haynes said that the agency is always reviewing its guidance and recommendation with the consideration of new findings on COVID-19.

Studies have showed that the COVID-19 can take up to two weeks to cause illness in someone who is infected,

However, a huge majority of those who contract the virus and show symptoms do so in the four to seven days.

A study published last week in The Lancet Microbe showed that someone infected with the virus is contagious for the first five days after symptoms begin.

The changes under consideration are evidence of CDC researchers that fewer Americans are following their quarantine guidelines amid the pandemic.

This even after more than a quarter million people have died.

Meanwhile, most people are starting to travel, especially over the Thanksgiving holiday, which increases the likelihood of spreading the virus at events when more than 100,000 people are testing positive every day.

COVID-19 Vaccine

CDC director Robert Redfield told Fox News on Tuesday that a vaccine will become available in the end of the second week in December.

Redfield said that a vaccine would be initially available in a hierarchical way, prioritizing nursing home residents and some healthcare providers.

This would also include individuals at high risk for a poor outcome.

The Food and Drug Administration has set a meeting on Dec. 10 with its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

The meeting will be discussing Pfizer's request for emergency use authorization of its vaccine candidate.

Pfizer and German partner BioNTech earlier announced last week that their vaccine candidate is 95 percent effective against COVID-19 in a large, ongoing study.

The FDA can grant the request for EUA before the final testing is fully complete.

Redfield projects 40 million doses of vaccine before the end of the year.

He added that that is enough vaccine for 20 people as it requires two administered doses.

But then it will continue through January and February and hopefully by March we'll start to see vaccine available for the general public," Redfield was quoted on a Fox News report.