The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its guidelines for defining close contact with a person who is positive for COVID-19. Previously, close contact was defined as occurring when someone was within 6 feet of an infectious person for 15 consecutive minutes. Now close contact includes people who were within 6 feet for a total of 15 minutes over a 24-hour period, as the CDC now advises that repeated, brief encounters also carry a risk of transmission.
On the Mayo Clinic Q&A podcast, Dr. Gregory Poland, an infectious diseases expert and head of Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group, discusses the updated information from the CDC and the latest information from the Food and Drug Administration on COVID-19 treatments and vaccines
To practice safe social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, this interview was conducted using video conferencing. The sound and video quality are representative of the technology used.
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Dr. Poland has served as a consultant for Merck & Co. Inc., Medicago Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc, Sanofi Pasteur, Emergent BioSolutions Inc., Dynavax Technologies Corp., Genentech Inc., Eli Lilly and Co., Kentucky BioProcessing Inc. and Genevant Sciences Corp., and Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. He is a paid scientific adviser for Johnson & Johnson. Honoraria: Elsevier.