What the CDC’s New Definition of Close Contact Really Means
Repeated brief encounters with the same person are now considered close encounters, as per the amendment to the CDC’s definition. Previously, for someone to be “close contact,” they had to stay within six feet of you for at least 15 minutes. minutes. This change recognizes that, according to recent research , you don’t need to spend 15 minutes with the same person at the same time. If you see the same person several times a day for several minutes, he is still considered a close contact if these meetings add up to 15 minutes.
Here is the official definition as it stands:
A person who has been within 6 feet of an infected person for a total of 15 minutes or more in 24 hours * from 2 days before the onset of illness (or, for asymptomatic patients, 2 days before sample collection) until the time the patient is isolated …
This asterisk leads to a footnote longer than the definition itself, which suggests that we are still in uncharted territory when it comes to understanding how the coronavirus works. The CDC claims the above definition is good enough if you are looking for a specific rule, but adds that many other factors can be considered. You are probably at higher risk if the person had active symptoms at the time, for example, or if they were right in front of your face instead of five feet away, or if they were screaming or singing.
We still don’t know how many protective masks are really given to us, and when you consider your contact with the people in your life, you may not realize that you or another person may not be wearing the mask properly. For example, you might remember “oh yeah, that guy was wearing a mask,” but it might not completely cover his nose , or it might have been damp or made from a fabric that allows a lot of drips to pass through. For all these reasons, masks are not a factor in defining “close contact,” although they almost certainly do provide a good bit of protection .
Different organizations may have definitions that differ from the one used by the CDC. Gothamist reports that the benchmark for New York is, for example, 10 minutes of close contact instead of 15. The most important thing to know about the CDC rule change is that we have data that suggests shorter interactions add up …