The CDC Said What?

On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that they were making an odd change to an important rule. “People with COVID-19 should isolate for 5 days,” a press release explained. Though there are some other particulars and caveats to the guidance, it is notably shorter from the previously recommended 10 days and lacks a recommendation to take a test before resuming contact with others.

The guidance quickly came under scrutiny from health experts and comedians alike, with Ariel Dumas, the head writer for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, tweeting:

The joke format quickly caught on. In no particular order, here are some of our favorite, um, variants:

This one is a stats joke:

This one is a Yellowjackets reference: