{"id":5491,"date":"2023-12-12T14:55:48","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T20:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5491"},"modified":"2023-12-12T21:50:30","modified_gmt":"2023-12-13T03:50:30","slug":"how-long-are-you-contagious-with-covid-heres-what-to-know-if-you-test-positive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/12\/12\/how-long-are-you-contagious-with-covid-heres-what-to-know-if-you-test-positive\/","title":{"rendered":"How long are you contagious with COVID? Here&#8217;s what to know if you test positive"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcchicago.com\/news\/coronavirus\/how-long-are-you-contagious-with-covid-heres-what-to-know-if-you-test-positive\/3299727\/\">NBC News\/Chicago<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcchicago.com\/news\/local\/respiratory-virus-cases-mounting-in-illinois-ahead-of-the-holidays-health-officials-warn\/3298724\/\">With COVID cases and other respiratory viruses on the rise,<\/a>&nbsp;you might know someone who has recently tested positive or wondered how long a person is contagious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The answer depends on several factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As of Friday, 44 counties in Illinois were at an elevated level for COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to the state&#8217;s Department of Public Health. In all, 39 counties were at a medium level and five were under the &#8220;high&#8221; alert as the state saw a 20% increase in hospitalizations within the last week, according to data from the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.com\/v3\/__https:\/covid.cdc.gov\/covid-data-tracker\/*maps_new-admissions-rate-county__;Iw!!PIZeeW5wscynRQ!r24djWPH65W8KBenZi4964Vcah-oyPpdWIk3UC0QCD6_Cytk9xPFEraiyTy7drXFmZKBlLLfsjX6Uq0K4REawal32hng$\">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So how long could you spread the virus if you test positive?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The CDC&#8217;s guidelines for isolating have not changed since May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regardless of vaccination status,&nbsp;those who test positive should isolate from others for at least five days and isolate from others in your home, the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/symptoms-testing\/testing.html#:~:text=If%20you%20have%20symptoms%2C%20test%20immediately.&amp;text=If%20you%20use%20an%20antigen,as%20soon%20as%20you%20can.\">CDC&nbsp;<\/a>reports. You should also isolate&nbsp;if you are sick and suspect that you have COVID-19 but do not yet have&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/symptoms-testing\/testing.html\">test<\/a>&nbsp;results,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcchicago.com\/news\/coronavirus\/with-covid-cases-rising-here-are-the-guidelines-to-follow-if-you-test-positive\/3223113\/\">the guidelines state.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To calculate the number of days you should isolate, the CDC has a guide:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you had no symptoms:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Day 0 is the day you were tested&nbsp;(not the day you received your positive test result)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Day 1 is the first full day&nbsp;following the day you were tested<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you develop&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/symptoms-testing\/symptoms.html\">symptoms<\/a>&nbsp;within 10 days of when you were tested, the&nbsp;clock restarts at day 0 on the day of symptom onset<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If you had symptoms:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Day 0 of isolation is the day of symptom onset, regardless of when you tested positive<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Day 1 is the first full day&nbsp;after the day your&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/symptoms-testing\/symptoms.html\">symptoms<\/a>&nbsp;started<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If you had no symptoms, you can end your isolation after day five, but for those who experience symptoms, that line might be different, the CDC notes.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NBC News\/Chicago With COVID cases and other respiratory viruses on the rise,&nbsp;you might know someone who has recently tested positive or wondered how long a person is contagious. The answer depends on several factors. As of Friday, 44 counties in Illinois were at an elevated level for COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to the state&#8217;s Department of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5492,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491\/revisions\/5492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}