Relaxed CDC Covid Guidelines Seen as Boost for Return to the Workplace

Many executives and city leaders who had been struggling to break pandemic work-from-home habits see this as a boost to their halting efforts to bring people back into the workplace. They say that previous CDC recommendations made it difficult to enforce their policies, since one exposure could send an entire team home.

“That’s always been the big thing,” said Dave Younge, an owner of Progressive Stamping & Fabrication LLC in Oklahoma City, who noted a positive case among an employee on the company’s production floor raised questions about whether everyone working nearby also needed to stay home. “This kind of clears that up.”

Those who advise companies on health matters issued new guidance to employers in the wake of the CDC’s recommendations. Zero Hour Health, a health advisory firm whose clients include large restaurant chains and others, sent a note to clients Friday morning letting them know that employees exposed to the virus could continue to work, while wearing a mask, monitoring for symptoms and testing.

“Companies are feeling an enormous sense of relief of not having to exclude people who were exposed,” said Roslyn Stone, chief executive officer of Zero Hour Health.

The CDC’s updated guidelines would likely ease staffing pressures, Ms. Stone said, though she said the new policies and others also created the risk for confusion about testing protocols and how best to comply. The virus also remains a reality in workplaces, during corporate meetings and at other events, she said. “We’re seeing outbreaks daily.”

For months, bosses have pushed to get more employees in offices, often with limited success. Office occupancy in 10 major U.S. cities hovered near 45% in mid July, but then fell to 43% as of early August, according to data from Kastle Systems, which tracks identification badge swipes. Businesses hoping for a rebound in office attendance have been disappointed; salad chain

Sweetgreen Inc.

this week said a “slower-than-expected return to office and an erratic urban recovery” hurt its sales, and it laid off workers.

The spread of the BA.5 variant contributed to a jump in Covid-related worker absences at U.S. companies this summer, and some bosses have said staffing is harder now than at any previous stage in the pandemic.

The U.S. is showing signs that a monthslong surge, most recently fueled by the Omicron BA.5 subvariant, is easing. Virus levels in wastewater have been trending lower nationally since late July. The seven-day average for people hospitalized with confirmed Covid-19 in the U.S. appears to have plateaued in recent weeks after climbing steadily since April, federal data show. Signs of severe illness remained muted due to built-up immunity from vaccines and prior infections, as well as treatments such as the medication Paxlovid.

Public-health experts and infectious-disease specialists had mixed reactions to the CDC’s updated guidance. Some said the changes were appropriate given wider use of vaccines and treatments. Others criticized the CDC, saying vaccination numbers remain low among many age groups including children and hundreds of people in the U.S. continue to die from the virus daily.

“I do not think the CDC’s new guidance is appropriate for public health, given that it relies completely on individual actions and the honor system,” said Elizabeth Jacobs, an epidemiologist at the University of Arizona. “The guidance does not allow for protection of those who are most vulnerable to severe Covid-19.”

Vincent Racaniello, a virologist at Columbia University, said he agreed with the CDC’s updated stance. “We have vaccines and drugs that can protect us. What else are we waiting for?” he said. “The virus isn’t going anywhere. It’s here to stay. We have to start thinking about getting back to normal.”

The experience of Britain suggests easing measures won’t necessarily lead to a sudden rush back to the office, and could present challenges. The U.K. dropped its formal Covid-19 restrictions in February, including a legal requirement that those infected with the virus self-isolate, as part of a plan the government dubbed “Living With Covid.”

Companies broadly welcomed the shift as a return to normal even as a rise in infection rates in the wake of the move has, at times, left some businesses in sectors like transportation contending with higher staff absences. According to the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics, more than 300,000 workers, or about 1.1% of workers, took time off due to Covid infections in June.

And while visits to pubs and restaurants have rebounded—in the first week of August, the number of seated diners was up 126% on the same week in 2019, according to ONS data—Britons appear less eager to return to the office. The number of weekday passengers on London’s Tube network has been at 70% of prepandemic levels in recent weeks, according to data for Transport for London, though that is up from about 45% of 2019 levels in early January.

In the U.S., some executives said the new CDC guidance would have little effect on corporate policies since many organizations had months ago stopped asking employees whether they had been exposed to Covid-19. Steve Pemberton, chief human-resources officer at the workplace technology company Workhuman, said he and other HR executives use CDC guidance as one factor in setting workplace policies.

Workhuman will begin asking its employees to return to its offices at least one day a week next month. Mr. Pemberton said the company, which has headquarters in Framingham, Mass., and Dublin, has instructed employees to exercise their best judgment on whether they feel healthy enough to come into work.

In practice, many companies had already decided “we’re done” with Covid, Mr. Pemberton said, after the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines and treatments and a fear that some employees had become isolated in the pandemic. The new CDC guidance is a reflection that the virus isn’t going away. “This is here to stay,” he said.

The same is true at U.S. schools and colleges, many of which had already been eliminating Covid-19 protocols as they prepare for students to return in the fall.

The new guidelines could also raise complications, some say. At Wonderspring Early Education, a provider of child-care centers and before- and after-school care sites around Philadelphia, CEO Zakiyyah Boone said she and her colleagues will be meeting in the coming weeks to set a communication plan around the CDC’s guidance before the new school year begins. The updated regulations have the potential for creating more anxiety among teachers who want to protect themselves from Covid-19.

She plans to make it clear to both staff and families that, even with the new recommendations, “nobody’s coming in here with Covid,” she said, and that the school would still insist that those who are sick stay home.

“Families are going to want us to be more lenient because they need care for their children; teachers are going to want us to be more strict,” Ms. Boone said. “Fear and anxiety are ever present regardless of the guidelines.”

—Benjamin Katz, Dominique Mosbergen and Jon Kamp contributed to this article.

Write to Chip Cutter at chip.cutter@wsj.com