Are you in contact or positive for Covid-19? From Monday, January 3, the isolation measures are changing and becoming more flexible. In an interview with JDD, the Minister of Health detailed, Sunday, these new rules. LPositive people with a complete vaccination schedule will therefore have to isolate themselves for seven days, regardless of the variant. This isolation can be lifted after five days in the event of a negative antigen or PCR test. Those who are not vaccinated, on the other hand, will have to isolate themselves for ten days, with a possible exit after seven days, under the same conditions.
In addition, there will be no more quarantine for contact cases with a complete vaccination schedule, who will however have to strictly respect the barrier gestures and “do regular tests”, explained the Minister of Health. Why such a relaxation of isolation rules even as contaminations are exploding? Franceinfo takes stock.
To limit the “disorganization” of society
The Scientific Council had warned, as early as December 23. The extreme contagiousness of the Omicron variant could lead to “disorganization” of France because of an increase in work stoppages. “Between November and mid-December, the number of exceptional work stoppages for people needing to self-isolate increased by more than seven, from 5,763 to 42,541”, remember The Parisian.
Until now, the isolation rules were much more restrictive. Positive people had to stay in isolation for ten days regardless of the variant and contact cases of a person who had contracted the Omicron variant had to self-isolate for a minimum of seven days. The duration of isolation could also reach 17 days, whatever the variant, when sharing the home of a positive person.
This rule change is therefore aimed at precisely avoiding a disorganization of society. The idea is to “take into account the extremely rapid development of the distribution of the Omicron variant in France”, explains the Ministry of Health in a press release. This change of rules should make it possible to“have a benefit-risk balance aimed at ensuring the control of contamination while maintaining socio-economic life”, still according to the ministry.
As of tomorrow, new isolation rules for positive cases and contact cases will apply. They aim as much to fight against the spread of the virus as to protect our daily life.
The virus mutates, our fight against it adapts.– Olivier Véran (@olivierveran) January 2, 2022
To “allow continuity of care”
Specific isolation rules have been provided for caregivers. “The High Council of Public Health has validated the possibility for a caregiver to waive, under certain conditions, isolation and continue to work even if he has Covid-19, if he has no or few symptoms. “, explains Olivier Véran in The JDD. “The caregivers being by nature vaccinated, it is a question of allowing the continuity of care, taking into account the very great health tension and the high number of positive personnel or cases of contact”, continues the minister.
“There is always a risk, but it’s a minimal risk strategy between putting a positive but asymptomatic caregiver to work and closing beds. I believe it is even better to be able to care for patients who need it.”, assure franceinfo Bruno Mégarbane, head of the intensive care unit at Lariboisière hospital. For the latter, this possibility for a caregiver to work with the Covid-19 and under conditions will not solve the basic problem of the lack of personnel in the hospital but “it is a transitory plastering to allow to pass the acute course”.
Because the available scientific data seem to allow it
However, there remains an unanswered question: is it reasonable, from an epidemiological point of view, to reduce isolation times even when record levels of contamination are reached? Is there not a risk of overloading hospitals? While extreme caution must be exercised on the matter, initial studies from South Africa, Scotland and England published in December show that the Omicron variant appears to cause fewer hospitalizations than Delta. According to these data, still very incomplete and to be handled with care, Omicron could be between 35% and 80% less severe than Delta.
>> INFOGRAPHICS. Covid-19: contaminations, hospitalizations, mortality … What we learn from data from countries already affected by Omicron
The shortening of isolation times is also motivated, explains The JDD citing a note from the ministry, by the first virological data available for Omicron, which “show a shorter incubation time of the variant than for the previous variants”. Explanations confirmed by some health professionals.
Symptoms appear faster with Omicron because by being vaccinated, therefore immune, your immune system reacts very quickly when the virus is present.
Bruno Mégarbane, head of the intensive care unit at Lariboisière hospitalto franceinfo
“And then the viral load peaks earlier and the viral load decreases faster, so the symptoms are shorter over time,” continues Bruno Mégarbane. And elimination of the virus is faster, thus perfectly allowing a reduction in the time of isolation of positive people. “
Because other countries have already adopted these rules
France is not alone in reducing isolation times. In Switzerland, the cantons can since Friday reduce the quarantine of contact cases to seven days, against ten previously, and limit it “to people living together or having been in intimate contact with a person who has tested positive”.
Fears of destabilization of the economy had already led Spain to decide, on Wednesday, to reduce the forty people positive for Covid-19 to seven days, against ten previously, in order to find a balance between “public health” and “economic growth”, according to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. On the same day, Argentina took a similar decision in an attempt to minimize the impact on economic activity of a record spike in cases in its territory. Portugal decided on the same measure on Friday.
To limit absences and thus avoid blockages and shortages, Joe Biden’s administration decided on Monday to reduce the recommended quarantine period from ten to five days for people positive for Covid, provided they are asymptomatic.