El Paso County Public Health shares tips to support your mental health and well-being this winter.
By Dr. Paul Mayer, co-medical director of El Paso County Public Health
COVID-19 isolation
If you test positive for COVID-19, it’s important to stay home for at least five days and isolate from others. This is because you are likely most infectious during these first five days. COVID-19 isolation is counted in days, as follows:
If you had no symptoms:
- Day 0 is the day you were tested (not the day you received your positive test result) .
- Day 1 is the first full day following the day you were tested.
- If you develop symptoms within 10 days of when you were tested, the clock restarts at day 0 on the day when you began experiencing symptoms.
If you had symptoms:
- Day 0 of isolation is the day of symptom onset, regardless of when you tested positive.
- Day 1 is the first full day after the day your symptoms started.
You do not need to test negative in order to end isolation. In general, you can end isolation based on the following:
If you had no symptoms, you can end isolation after day five.
If you had symptoms and they are improving, you can end isolation after day five if you are fever-free for 24 hours (without the use of fever-reducing medication).
If you had symptoms and they are not improving, continue to isolate until your symptoms are improving and you are fever-free for 24 hours (without the use of fever-reducing medication).
