Jae C. Hong/AP

Government guidance on COVID-19 is shifting as new cases of the virus in the U.S. reach record levels.

On Monday, the CDC cut the recommended isolation time for asymptomatic COVID-positive people from 10 days to five. The same day, President Joe Biden made headlines by telling governors “there is no federal solution” to COVID-19 and that it must be "solved at a state level."

Despite Biden's remarks, potential new federal policies also made headlines. Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said Monday that the U.S. should "seriously consider" vaccine mandates for flights, but later said he doesn't expect that "in the reasonably foreseeable future."

Even former politicians made top headlines for comments about COVID-19. In a viral interview with Candace Owens that made waves across the political spectrum, former President Donald Trump voiced strong support for the COVID-19 vaccine, hailing it as "one of the greatest achievements of mankind."

Left-rated outlets often highlighted rising U.S. COVID-19 cases and the government's new pandemic guidance. Some focused on people who were confused by the shortened isolation guidance or found it premature. Many right-rated outlets focused on how Omicron is seemingly less severe, and also on Biden's "no federal solution" remark. Some contrasted those comments with the pledge Biden made to "shut down the virus" during the 2020 campaign. Others on the right questioned how that position could justify continued federal COVID-19 regulations.


More from AllSides:


Snippets from the Right

Some vaccine mandates may leave US vulnerable at home and abroad as omicron numbers surge
Fox News

"Overlapping federal mandates for military personnel, state mandates for health care workers, and other private mandates have created an increasingly difficult situation in the face of the omicron variant as numbers continue to surge in some states due to the much greater transmissibility of the variant. "

The COVID narrative is changing — don't let Democrats get away with what they've done to our country
Washington Examiner (opinion)

"Medical experts are openly admitting the cloth masks they pushed on the public don’t work. The emotional and mental toll that remote learning and forced isolation have taken on children is finally being acknowledged. And public health officials, who for so long demanded that we change our lifestyles to accommodate the pandemic, are revising their policies in recognition that there’s nothing we can do to stop it."


Snippets from the Left  

Covid-19 surges spark chain reactions that strain US hospitals everywhere
Vox (analysis)

"One hospital being overwhelmed isn’t a one-hospital problem, it’s an every-hospital problem. Even if your community is not awash with Covid-19 or if most people are vaccinated, a major outbreak in your broader region, plus all the other patients hospitals are treating in normal times, could easily fill your hospital, too."


The C.D.C. Has New Covid Guidelines. This Is What It Got Wrong.
New York Times (opinion) 

"...the change doesn’t grapple effectively with the reality that the fully vaccinated and boostered and the unvaccinated are living in two different worlds. The C.D.C. guidelines still rely on a mostly one-size-fits-all approach and ignore the use of antigen testing to make distinctions between the relative safety and danger of both groups."


Snippets from the Center  

US move to shorten COVID-19 isolation stirs confusion, doubt
Associated Press

"U.S. health officials’ decision to shorten the recommended COVID-19 isolation and quarantine period from 10 days to five is drawing criticism from some medical experts and could create more confusion and fear among Americans. To the dismay of some authorities, the new guidelines allow people to leave isolation without getting tested to see if they are still infectious."

CDC boss says COVID-19 hospitalizations are 'comparatively low' as US records most ever cases in a single day
Insider

"New COVID-19 hospitalizations are up, but not in proportion to cases. There were 14% more daily new hospitalization than the previous week — from about 8,000 average daily new COVID-19 hospital admissions on December 20 to about 9,400 on December 27."


See more big stories from the past week.