The United States has halved the length of quarantine for people infected with COVID-19, and asymptomatic, in order to curb disturbances, especially in the air, caused by the increase in contamination, which triggered restrictions in Germany on Tuesday .
Some 11,500 flights have been canceled since Friday and tens of thousands postponed to the end of the year, a period when air links are usually the busiest. Many companies explain these contingencies by infections with the Omicron variant among the crews.
The whole world has been affected, with around 3,000 flights already canceled on Monday and another 1,100 on Tuesday, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.
The pandemic gives rise to rare situations in the air, such as when Delta Airlines decided to return a mid-air plane to Shanghai back to Seattle, in the northwestern United States, last week due to the new restrictions. sanitary facilities required at the airport, as the American company explained to AFP on Monday. It has also drawn criticism from the Chinese authorities.
Reduction “justified by science”
In order to allow more people to return to work faster and thus avoid the prospect of bottlenecks and shortages, the US health authorities have authorized the reduction of the duration of isolation from ten to five days for people positive for the virus. COVID-19, provided they are asymptomatic.
They are advised to wear the mask for five days after quarantine.
The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the main health agency in the United States, said in a statement that the change was “justified by science,” according to which the majority of infections occur within two days. before and three days after the onset of symptoms.
The quarantine period for unvaccinated contact cases is also reduced from 14 to 5 days, with the advice also to wear a mask strictly within the following five days. According to these recommendations, fully vaccinated contact cases do not need to self-isolate.
Omicron, much more transmissible but which seems to cause less severe symptoms, is now the majority in the United States.
And the number of cases is rising sharply in the most bereaved country in the world, with more than 800,000 deaths.
On Monday morning, President Joe Biden acknowledged that some hospitals across the country were “overwhelmed in terms of equipment and staff” but called on Americans not to “panic”.
In France, new isolation rules for patients and their contacts will be set by the government “by the end of the week, once the consultations” with scientific bodies are completed, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on Monday.
“It will be a question of both adapting these durations according to the variant and here again of placing less strain on the vaccinated persons”, he specified.
It has also implemented new measures (teleworking, gauges for large gatherings) in the face of the increase in contamination, the threshold of 100,000 new daily cases having been crossed on Saturday for the first time in France.
Limited contacts in Germany
On the German side, it is the restrictions announced on December 21 that come into force on Tuesday, with in particular the limitations of contact, even between vaccinated people, to a maximum of ten guests for the New Year celebrations. -vaccinated, the limit falls to two guests maximum, then specified the new Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
In Sweden, a negative Covid test is mandatory from this Tuesday for all travelers upon their arrival in the territory.
In China, which is preparing for the Winter Olympics (February 4 to 20) and has been applying a “zero Covid strategy” since last year, the city of Xi’an (north) has promised to impose the measures “the stricter ”, after the screening of several hundred cases of Covid.
Residents of the city have been forced to stay at home since Thursday, with the right to go out only once every three days for refueling.
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed at least 5,398,049 worldwide since the WHO office in China reported the onset of the disease at the end of December 2019 in that country, according to a report drawn up on Monday by AFP from official sources. The World Health Organization estimates that the real toll could be two to three times higher.