A return-to-work experiment resulted in a successful shortening of quarantine to 7 or 8 days following COVID-19 exposure among employees at a Pittsburgh hospital system. The result was hundreds of saved workdays, researchers say.
The hospital had previously shortened its quarantine from the then federally recommended 14 days to 10 days once they found that few workers developed symptoms after day 10. In response to staffing deficiencies, investigators in early 2021 sought to examine whether quarantine could be further safely reduced. To do so, they enrolled 384 unvaccinated, asymptomatic healthcare personnel in a new quarantine program.
Participants were at high risk of SARS-CoV-2 exposure and were less than four days from the date of their last exposure. These personnel were allowed to return to work if they were asymptomatic through day seven and had a negative SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) taken five to seven days after being exposed. Fully 87% remained asymptomatic after seven days, and of those workers 97% received negative test results and returned early to their jobs.
Low risk of transmission
Overall, 92% of program participants successfully returned to work approximately two days earlier than the standard 10-day quarantine. This saved 546 work days over a six-month period, the researchers reported.
Implementing an early return-to-work program is “a clinical approach for COVID-19 workplace safety that can increase staffing availability, while maintaining a low risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission,” the authors concluded.
“The COVID-19 pandemic will likely persist for years,” said Graham M. Snyder, M.D., University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC Presbyterian. The findings suggest “that a thoughtfully designed program can enable certain healthcare personnel to return to work seven days following a higher-risk SARS-CoV-2 exposure, alleviating the serious workforce shortages we experienced over the past two years.”
The study was published in the American Journal of Infection Control.
