São Paulo, SP (Fulhapress) – England has announced that it will reduce the minimum quarantine time for people with Covid-19 to five days, a measure similar to that taken recently by the United States and Brazil. From Monday (17), anyone with the disease will be able to forgo isolation if they submit two consecutive negative results – one on day 5 and one at the start of day 6.
So far, the recommended period has been up to ten days, with the possibility of reducing it to seven if you have a negative test.
Because of the mass absenteeism of infected professionals working in key sectors such as health, education and transportation, Boris Johnson’s government is pushing for the isolation period to be reduced to five days, as the United States has already done.
British Health Minister Sajid Javid told Parliament on Thursday (13) that the reduction in quarantine will be done to “reduce” the impact of absenteeism on the economy.
Citing data from UKHSA, Javid argued that “about two-thirds of positive cases were no longer transmissible at the end of the fifth day”.
And he announced to the deputies, “We reviewed the isolation period for positive cases, to ensure that the measures put in place maximize economic and educational activity and reduce the risks of the injured abandoning quarantine.”
At the end of December 2021, the United States reduced the isolation period to five days, on condition of wearing a “tight mask” for ten days, in addition to the necessity of full vaccination.
On January 10, it was Brazil’s health ministry’s turn to recommend the same reduced isolation time for asymptomatic people, despite experts warning there was not enough evidence that the new rule was safe — especially with testing difficult to access in the country. parents.
With more than 151,000 deaths from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, the seventh highest number in the world, the UK in recent weeks has recorded a record number of daily infections attributed to the omicron variant.
However, due to booster vaccination and reduced severity of the variant, hospitalizations and deaths did not increase sharply.
“It is encouraging that during this wave we have not seen an increase in intensive care patients with Covid-19. There are already early indications that the hospitalization rate is starting to decline,” the health minister said.
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