Gov. Hochul announces latest quarantine guidelines for health care workers after mandating they all be fully vaccinated

On Friday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that vaccinated workers who test positive for the virus and are asymptomatic can return to work after five days. Unvaccinated workers though must wait 10 days before returning to work, according to ABC7.

Hochul said the new guidelines would be key in keeping the state's workforce adequately staffed amidst the Omicron variant spike.

"We want to make sure our critical workforce, who we have relied on since the beginning and I want to make sure that our workers can get back," Hochul said. "That includes our health care, elder care, home health care, sanitation, grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants, you know who you are."

The news comes after the CDC loosened their quarantine guidance for healthcare workers, stating that healthcare workers should stay lout of work if they test positive.

"The CDC determined that workers would be allowed to come back to work after seven days if they test negative and don't have symptoms, while isolation time could be cut to five days, or even fewer, if there are severe staffing shortages," according to ABC7.

New York set a new record on Friday, with 44,431 cases. The state though had just 4,744 new hospitalizations statewide.

"With a lot of testing, the upside is we are getting a handle of where the cases are and how we can control that spread," Hochul said. "We expect many of those who do test positive won't show symptoms or even just very mild symptoms that won't require them to go to a hospital or even see a doctor."

Hochul also announced that 95 percent of adults over the age of 18 have now received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine in the state.