How Long Are People Contagious When They Are Sick with COVID-19?

How Long Are People Contagious When They Are Sick with COVID-19?

Hank Bernstein, MD: I'm Hank Bernstein and I'm speaking on behalf of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The question, “How long are people contagious when they're sick with COVID-19?” This question is asked so many times, and I think we need to take a step back and talk a little bit about what's the difference between quarantine and isolation. And what I mean is that oftentimes we're exposed to somebody who has had a positive COVID test or is sick with COVID-19. If in fact we are exposed, we need to quarantine. We need to keep ourselves away from others while we determine whether or not we're going to develop COVID-19 disease. Many of the symptoms will manifest themselves on day four or five after you've been exposed. But there is still a chance with the incubation period being as long as 14 days. So, you may develop symptoms further out in that second week after the exposure. But, that's different than isolation.

Isolation is a specific term when you have the symptoms of COVID-19. Because when you have the symptoms, you wanna keep them to yourself. You do not want to spread them to other individuals that are living in your home, that are in your neighborhood, or that you come in contact with.