As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sought to clarify its COVID isolation guidance Tuesday, it managed to further muddy the waters.

The big picture: The CDC's guidance says people who have tested positive, or those who suspect they have COVID due to symptoms, should isolate for at least five days.

• The agency faced criticism last week for not recommending a negative COVID test as a condition to end isolation.
• The CDC still doesn't say people need to test negative to leave their isolation, but its newly updated guidance now says that anyone ending isolation who "has access to a test" and "wants to test" can do so.
• If they test positive, they should isolate for another five days, the CDC says. But if they are symptom free after five days and haven't tested, they can also go out in the world again. Either way, they should keep wearing a mask for five more days. And they really shouldn’t travel, but still can if they wear a mask and in no circumstance is it necessary to test negative.
• Got it?

What they're saying: "The newly updated @CDCgov isolation guidance adds to the confusional state," tweeted Eric Topol, executive vice president of Scripps Research.

• "I'm struggling to make heads or tails of it," Megan Ranney, academic dean at the Brown University School of Public Health, told Axios.

The other side: The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• It said online it did not require tests at the end of isolation because "a negative antigen test does not necessarily indicate the absence of transmissible virus." The agency recommends wearing a "well-fitting mask," with or without a test, when leaving isolation.
• Experts acknowledge it can be tricky to communicate with the public as science changes. They also recognize access to testing has also been an issue in recent weeks.

The bottom line: The advice could and should be delivered in simpler and clearer terms, experts said.

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A record 4.5 million workers quit their jobs in November, Axios' Emily Peck and Courtenay Brown report.

• Zoom in: Health care had the second-highest quit rate (6.4%) of all industries.

Between the lines: Hospitals and other health care facilities face staff shortages, especially among nurses, as the pandemic rages on and more workers call in sick, Axios' Bob Herman notes.

• Some staff are burned out from the pandemic and are either retiring or leaving for a different industry, and many nurses are also taking traveling gigs, which command high paydays.
• But claims that 1-in-5 health care workers have quit their jobs during the pandemic appear to be overstated.

The biggest area of concern: Nursing homes, where employment is still way down from pre-pandemic levels due to the extremely low pay, tough working conditions and high rates of COVID.

Roughly 20% of the $8 billion Medicare spent on lab tests in 2020 went toward COVID-19 tests, analysts at the Office of Inspector General wrote in a new report, Bob writes.

The big picture: COVID drove up Medicare's overall spending on tests by 4% from 2019 to 2020, but spending on routine lab work for other conditions fell 16% as people avoided getting care during the early stages of the pandemic.

• Why it matters: "Research suggests that delays of such lab tests could have a long-lasting impact on the health" of some Medicare patients, according to the OIG report.

Antiviral pills for treating COVID-19 have been called a potential game changer — but docs say the drugs are in short supply so far, the Washington Post reports.

• Amid surges of Omicron which are straining hospital capacity, the medications are in too limited supply to make a sizable impact.
• "I don't think they'll end up being the game changers we want them to be," said Shelley Schmidt, a critical care physician and pulmonologist in Grand Rapids, Michigan, per the Post.

State of play: President Biden announced the U.S. will double its order of Pfizer's antiviral pill, CNN reports.

• CDC shortens Pfizer booster wait time to five months. (Axios)
• In Omicron hot spots, hospitals fill up, but ICUs may not. (New York Times)
• Hackers hit Broward Health network, potentially exposing data on 1.3M patients, staff. (Fierce Healthcare)
• Robert Califf is a fervent believer in data. At the FDA, will that be enough? (STAT)