Spain reduces quarantine for positive cases to seven days, down from ten previously

While new rules must be announced at the end of the week for France, the Spanish government decided on Wednesday, December 29 to reduce the duration of the quarantine of people positive for Covid-19 to seven days against ten previously while the record number of contamination gives rise, as elsewhere, to fears of destabilization of the economy.

This measure is intended to strike a balance between “public health” and “economic growth”Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told reporters before the decision was formalized by the Ministry of Health in a statement. The decision is also justified by the observation of“a shorter incubation period for this variant (Omicron) compared to the others” according to some experts, explained the Minister of Health Carolina Darias. This reduction in the isolation period only concerns people who are asymptomatic on the seventh day, she detailed Wednesday evening to the press.

Spain, faced like the whole world with the surge of the Omicron variant, thus joins the growing list of countries to reduce the duration of the quarantine of infected people, such as Argentina on Wednesday and after the United States on Monday and England. shortly before Christmas.

The Spanish authorities had already recommended on December 21 to no longer impose a quarantine on fully vaccinated people who have been in close contact with people infected with the Omicron variant, but simply to limit their contact. Non-vaccinated contact cases, on the other hand, will still have to observe a quarantine, also reduced on Wednesday from ten to seven days.

Spain shattered its record on Wednesday with 100,760 cases recorded in 24 hours. The previous wave of daily records was in mid-January and was nearly 40,000 cases in 24 hours. The country recorded on Wednesday an incidence of 1,508 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days, and 915 over seven days.