Filenews 4 August 2021
In amending the guidelines concerning the release from isolation of cases of coronavirus without symptoms or with mild disease, the Ministry of Health proceeds.
In particular, according to the new Directives, the following shall apply to release from isolation:
- Asymptomatic individuals: Release from isolation 10 days after taking the positive sample for SARS-CoV-2.
- People with mild/moderate symptomatology: Release from isolation 10 days after the onset of symptoms, as long as the patient has been without fever for at least 3 days (without the use of fever-combating medicine) or improvement of the remaining symptoms.
It is clarified that the self-limit for positive cases is 10 days. Therefore, the date of release of the case is the 11th day from the date of the first positive laboratory result or the date of onset of symptoms, calculated as day 0.
It is stressed that in any case citizens should contact their Personal Physician to ensure that the criteria are met. Those citizens who are not registered with a Personal Physician are released from the Epidemiological Surveillance Unit of the Ministry.
The new recommendations concern all those who fall into the above two groups of cases (asymptomatic or mild/moderate symptomatology), regardless of their vaccination history. The decision to release on the 10th day is retroactive and the relevant revised instructions have already been updated by the Personal Physicians. For example, a virus-positive person with no symptoms currently on the 8th day of his restriction is released by his or her Personal Physician after 2 days. Similarly, if a person is currently on the 11th day of confinement, he or she may be released by the Physician's Staff as of today.
Finally, it should be clarified that the directives on close contacts remain as they are, namely:
- Close contacts with a vaccination history are immediately excluded from isolation if they have completed their vaccination regimen with a two-dose vaccine or after 14 days of vaccination with a monodosive vaccine.
- Close contacts without a history of vaccination should remain in mandatory self-restriction for 14 days from their last contact with the case regardless of laboratory result (the contact day is defined as day 0).
- Close contacts without a history of vaccination may be released on the 7th day following their last contact with the case, if they have necessarily undergone, at their own expense, a PCR test on the 7th day with a negative result.
