Home isolation should continue to last five days from the discovery of positivity, but you can leave the house without the need to show a negative swab but with the foresight to wear a mask in case of residual symptoms. In practice, the Covid “quarantine” will behave almost like a flu with fever, but with some extra caution. This in extreme synthesis is the hypothesis of “simplification” evoked by the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci for home isolation and in line with an opinion just produced by the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute.
Spallanzani’s opinion sent to Minister Schillaci
Five days of isolation for the asymptomatic and five days also for those with mild symptoms if you do not have a fever, but with the foresight to use the mask if you are not negativized in the following days. This is the opinion that the Spallanzani Institute sent to the Ministry of Health for the new rules on isolation for Covid positives. Recommendations and not impositions therefore, the Roman institute makes known, because this “is the moment of responsibility”. The virus is less pathogenic, it is the phase of empowerment of citizens not of obligations. In its opinion, the Institute underlines how “in many countries the period of isolation for people who have tested positive has been drastically reduced”. “We believe – explains Spallanzani – that for asymptomatic the isolation can last 5 days from positivity, without the need for a further negative test”.
The foresight of the mask after five days
As for those with mild symptoms, the same Institute for Infectious Diseases believes that isolation can always be interrupted five days after the onset of symptoms, “if without fever for 24 hours.” Spallanzani, however, recommends caution in this case. “Especially in this phase, where there may be overlap with seasonal flu, it would be advisable in the following five days, if you do not have a negative test, prudently use a mask, in case of contact with fragile people”. Spallanzani’s opinion is now on the table of Minister Schillaci who very soon could decide for a decisive simplification. The minister expects to wait at least for this week’s data to understand if in the face of the slight increase in infections there are also effects at the hospital level with an increase in hospitalizations. At the moment there would be no signs of this kind and the new Cerberus sub-variant already present in Italy and which is now prevalent in the US, but without significant effects on hospitalizations, does not seem to worry either.
Minister Schillaci: “We need less strict rules”
It was Minister Schillaci himself in recent days to underline, “as a technician”, that this is not a political question: “If we look at the two nations that have liberalized the most on this front, there are England and Spain (they have abolished the quarantine, ndr), with the conservatives leading the first country and the center-left leading the second ». “Today – continues the minister – some measures are excessive, we are working on them with Iss, Aifa and Istituto Spallanzani: if the epidemiological data continue to be good on isolation, we will have less rigid rules”. “Even on tampons we must think of a relief, because if Covid becomes a less aggressive disease as it seems – concludes Schillaci – a moral suasion on citizens and a little common sense may be enough. When one has the flu and a fever, it is enough to stay at home and not go out without too much stiffness or the need to do all the tampons that are done today “.