If you live in the state of California, you no longer need to quarantine if you were exposed to COVID-19 and have no symptoms, regardless of vaccination status.
The owners of a dulceria and piñata shop in San Jose said this will keep them from being short-staffed all the time, but are also afraid of an outbreak that would shut down the entire operation.
Cynthia Velazquez is one of the owners and said she and her husband have been following all of the state’s COVID-19 guidelines until now.
“For us we would prefer employees stay home until they test negative,” she said.
Get San Diego local news, weather forecasts, sports and lifestyle stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC San Diego newsletters.
The state’s health department is no longer recommending a five-day quarantine period for anyone exposed to COVID who’s asymptomatic, except for in high-risk settings.
However, they do still recommend you get tested three to five days after being exposed.
Cynthia said that during the peak of the pandemic, she had at least one employee calling in sick every week.
U.S. & World
“One person out really impacts us,” she said.
But at the same time, she and her husband Jose, realize that if an asymptomatic employee goes to work and gets everyone sick, It’ll hurt their family business big time.
“If I get sick, then there’s no production, I'm the only one that makes the bodies here,” said Jose Velazquez, Cynthia's husband and dulceria and piñata co-owner.
So they’ve decided to keep employees home unless necessary.
“I think we can do it without one employee, if it’s several I might have to rethink that and say who can come back and help us out,” said Jose.
After reaching out to all of the county health departments in the Bay Area, nearly all confirmed their guidelines align with the states except for Alameda County.
Alameda is evaluating the changes and the evolving COVID situation to determine if it will still require asymptomatic people to quarantine.
Health experts say it could be a good idea since cases are starting to rise.
“There is no longer a mask mandate, larger events can now start happening it's not surprising to me that cases will come up we are dealing with an omicron variant BA.2 that is more infectious than the original omicron that is slowly making its way to the United States,” said Dr. Luis Rubio, infectious disease expert at UCSF.
Experts said cases will continue to rise as more restrictions are loosened.
So now, we need to keep an eye on our hospitalization rates.
