Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams harshly criticized the new COVID-19 recommendation to shorten quarantine to five days. 

"I love the CDC. Grew up wanting to work there and have been one of their most ardent defenders. I never dreamed the day would come when I would advise people NOT to follow their guidance. They wouldn't even follow it for their own family," Adam wrote in a series of tweets on Tuesday, The Hill reports. 

"Regardless of what CDC says, you really should try to obtain an antigen test. There's not a scientist or doctor I've met yet who wouldn't do this for themselves/ their family," Adams continued in a follow-up tweet. 

On Monday, the CDC recommended shortening the isolation period from 10 days to five days for individuals who were infected with the virus and are asymptomatic. 

"CDC's updated recommendations for isolation and quarantine balance what we know about the spread of the virus and the protection provided by vaccination and booster doses. These updates ensure people can safely continue their daily lives," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in an official statement. 

The agency assured that its findings were based on science that concluded that the major part of virus transferral occurs in the first few days. However, the chief medical adviser of the Biden administration, Anthony Fauci, said the primary reason the recommendation changes were instituted was to get people back to their jobs. 

“The reason is that with the sheer volume of new cases that we are having and that we expect to continue with Omicron, one of the things we want to be careful of is we don’t have so many people out,” Fauci told Jim Acosta on CNN.

“If you are asymptotic and you are infected, we want to get people back to the jobs, especially those with essential jobs,” he continued.

Adams took issue with Fauci's stance on ignoring the necessary precautions to prevent the spread of the virus just to get people back to work.

The COVID-19 virus has claimed the lives of 5.4 million people worldwide, including 820,000 Americans, according to the real-time documentation assembled by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering, ABC News reports. 

An estimated 61.9% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the statistics compiled by the CDC.

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