Covid quarantine, towards new rules: the hypotheses

Covid quarantine, it is considered to reduce times. The current rules provide for a duration ranging from 7 to 10 days (depending on the vaccination status) even for those subjects who have received the third dose: the hypothesis in the field is to reduce it for those who have made the booster. After the words of General Figliuolo yesterday morning, who admitted that the rules on covid quarantine are the subject of a reflection, the government has convened the Technical Scientific Committee (CTS) on the subject for tomorrow, Wednesday 29 December. Read also The US has already reduced the isolation from 10 to 5 days for asymptomatic covid positives who will have to observe the obligation to wear a mask for another 5 days. The quarantine period for vaccinated subjects who have come into contact with a positive has also been reduced to 5 days. Instead, the absence of quarantine is looming for those who, after receiving the booster dose, have come into contact with a covid positive subject. Covid quarantine, how it now works in Italy Right now, close contacts of a confirmed case, after having alerted their doctor, can return to the community after a quarantine period of at least 7 or 10 days (depending on the vaccination status) from the last exposure to the case, at the end of which an antigenic or molecular test is performed with a negative result. At the end of the quarantine period, the person can return to work and the period of absence can be covered by the medical certificate. Upon return, the person must contact the competent doctor of his company for further information. In the event that you are identified as a ‘close contact’ of a confirmed case, no test with negative results allows you to be exempted from undergoing a quarantine period lasting at least 7 or 10 days (depending on the vaccination status) from the last exposure with a negative antigen or molecular test can be read in the Faq of the Ministry of Health.
By ‘close contact’ (high-risk exposure) of a probable or confirmed case we mean a person who lives in the same home as a covid case; a person who has had direct physical contact with a covid case; a person who has had unprotected direct contact with secretions from a covid case (e.g. touching used paper handkerchiefs with bare hands); a person who has had direct contact (face to face) with a case, at a distance of less than 2 meters and at least 15 minutes; a person who has been in an enclosed environment (e.g. classroom, meeting room, hospital waiting room) with a case in the absence of suitable protection (masks); a healthcare worker or other person providing direct assistance to a positive or laboratory staff involved in handling samples of a covid case without the use of recommended PPE or through the use of unsuitable PPE; a person who has traveled seated by train, plane or any other means of transport within two seats in any direction relative to a covid case; the travel companions and the staff assigned to the section of the plane / train where the index case was sitting are also close contacts. Covid vaccine, third dose for almost 57% of the population Meanwhile, the covid vaccine is being administered. The total administration of vaccines in Italy is 108,948,819, according to the latest updated data released by the government. In particular, 46,263,212 people completed the vaccination cycle, equal to 85.66% of the over-12 population, while 88.82% of Italians over-12 received at least one dose. 56.97% of Italians underwent the ‘third dose’, equal to 17,662,472 people, the total of healed (from a maximum of 6 months) was 392,350, equal to 0.73% of over-12s. Finally, in the 5-11 age group, 5.33% received at least one dose, equal to 194,995 units. Reduced quarantine, what the experts think

On the need to change the quarantine rules, several experts expressed themselves in favor. “It is clear that in this phase and with this diffusivity of Omicron we have to consider variations on the modalities with which we intervene, otherwise we are moving towards a generalized lockdown seeing how many people today vaccinated, but with young children, are forced home in quarantine for contacts with positives. The previous indications were fine with a different contagiousness, now we have to think of different modalities “, underlines the virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco, professor at the State University of Milan, at Adnkronos Salute. “The risk is to see Italy blocked for quarantines and isolations in 20 days,” Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic at the Policlinico San Martino hospital in Genoa, told Adnkronos Salute. “My proposals – he specifies – are as an infectious disease specialist and look at what will happen in a few weeks. If we decide to quarantine all the contacts of the positives as we are doing, considering an average between 5 and 10 contacts for each positive (between relatives and contacts in the workplace), the risk is to have a million positive people a day and who has to go into isolation because in contact – calculates Bassetti – In a few days we will reach 10 million people in quarantine, can we afford it? I would say no. Is it necessary to put so many people in isolation for positives that in the case of the vaccinated have at most one flu? We must begin to change the way we deal with Covid on the basis that for the vaccinated the disease is different and is attenuated “.” Today “, with Omicron running and Covid infections multiplying,” having all the contacts of “positive people” in quarantine really means closing society and the world working. I don’t think we can afford it “, warns microbiologist Maria Rita Gismondo, convinced that it is” necessary to review the protocols as they are doing for example in South Africa. “It is even more necessary considering that, one year after the first vaccination on V-Day of December 27, 2020, “the current situation is absolutely different from the one we have experienced in the last 2 years”, underlines Adnkronos Salute the director of the Laboratory of clinical microbiology, virology and bio-emergency diagnostics of the Sacco hospital in Milan. ” – he adds – finally the virus is showing itself more and more in a very attenuated pathology, if not even asymptomatic “.