CDC Eases COVID Restrictions: Florida Impact

FLORIDA — Federal health authorities announced scaled-back COVID-19 guidelines Thursday, representing a big change for Florida residents as key recommendations from the beginning of the pandemic are going away.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is no longer recommending people quarantine when exposed to someone with COVID-19, and is also dropping its guidance for people to stay 6 feet apart.

Instead, the agency is recommending those exposed to someone with COVID-19 wear a mask for 10 days and test for the virus on the fifth day.

The guidelines for those who test positive remain unchanged. They should isolate for five days and may end isolation after that time if they are fever-free for 24 hours without medication and their symptoms are improving. A mask should still be worn through the 10th day after testing positive, according to the guidelines.

Many states and cities already have loosened restrictions and abandoned measures such as social distancing as the country has started moving past the pandemic after two and a half years.

Gov. Ron DeSantis banned mask mandates for Florida public schools through an executive order.

As punishment for defying the order during a COVID surge in the spring, 12 school districts that required masks — Alachua, Brevard, Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, Indian River, Leon, Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach, Sarasota and Volusia counties — stood to lose about $200 million collectively in budget cuts at the direction of the state legislature. That decision was later reversed by the state.

Masks Still Recommended In All FL Counties

Residents in all of Florida's 67 counties should still wear a mask for indoor, public spaces, according to the CDC. The agency recommends masking in counties with "high" COVID-19 community levels — a metric based on hospitalizations and case rates that the agency adopted in late February, updating its color-coded COVID maps each Thursday.

This week's map showed 64 counties in the red for a high rate of virus, while three have medium community levels: Holmes, Taylor and Glades.

According to the New York Times COVID dashboard, Florida had a weekly average of 7,947 COVID cases per day as of Thursday. Cases have decreased by 26 percent from the average two weeks ago. Deaths have increased by 20 percent.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, at least 1 in 3 Florida residents have been infected, a total of 6,901,581 reported cases. At least 1 in 274 residents have died from the coronavirus, a total of 78,447 deaths.

January 2022 was the month with the highest average cases, while September 2021 was the month with the highest average deaths in Florida, the Times reported.

True case totals became more difficult to calculate in recent months because of the prevalence of at-home tests that don't typically get recorded in COVID statistics.

U.S. Better Able To Fight COVID-19

Greta Massetti, a senior epidemiologist with the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and an author of the guidelines, noted the country is better equipped to protect people and communities from severe illness from COVID-19.

An estimated 95 percent of Americans have some level of immunity from COVID-19, either from vaccination or infection, Massetti told reporters.

Schools could see the biggest change in COVID-19 restrictions as students will be able to stay in the classroom if they have been exposed to the virus but not tested positive. The CDC also ended its recommendation for routine daily testing, though it can be reinstated in situations with a surge of infections, the agency said.

The CDC guidelines align with the idea that children should be in the classroom, an objective that “can be done safely with acceptable levels of risk,” Dr. Richard Besser, a pediatrician and president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told NBC News.