What to know about isolation, masking and more if you're still testing positive late into a COVID-19 infection.
Or, if you did develop symptoms, you can leave isolation after you've been without a fever for 24 hours , provided your other symptoms are resolving as well. That can be as early as after five full days of isolation, the CDC says., you can take the test at the end of day five of your isolation . If it's negative, you can use that result to feel more confident about leaving isolation at that time. But if it's positive, the CDC says you should continue isolating through day 10.
Even with a rapid test, it's not unheard of for people to test positive up to 14 days, especially for those who are unvaccinated, Kissler said."We see a ton of variation between people in how long they test positive," he explained."While that average is closer to six to 10 days, there are people who will hang on for longer than that."
As long as you continue to test positive on a rapid at-home test, you should still consider yourself potentially contagious, Kissler said. But exactlyPeople tend to be most infectious right at the beginning of their COVID-19 infection. So by the time you reach day eight, nine, or 10,"you still have the chance to spread to other people, but it's probably not as much as you did early in the course of your infection," Kissler said.