Currently, a high-risk contact with an infected person still requires 14 days of quarantine, vaccinated or not, just as at the beginning of the pandemic. However, experts met last week and an alternative has been proposed and already delivered to the General Directorate of Health.
It is one of the immutable norms since the appearance of the pandemic coronavirus and that some experts say it no longer makes sense: whoever is vaccinated and comes into contact with a positive case must complete 14 days of isolation, four more than the infected person. Experts now want full shielding to be replaced by two molecular PCR tests.
The consultants of the Directorate-General of Health for the pandemic met last week to finalise the revision of the standard for high-risk contacts and proposed that the 14-day quarantine be abolished for those who already have full vaccination. The propose that from now on, only two molecular PCR tests, carried out in laboratories and hospitals, should be required on the 5th and 10th following exposure.
The proposed new standard, which has long been in force in the US, is now awaiting "superior approval", said one of the consultants of the national health authority for public health.
Two weeks ago, a researcher at the Institute of Public Health of the University of Porto, Bernardo Gomes, called for an urgent review. "People do not understand why the rule is the same for those who are and are not vaccinated and many begin to raise complex problems, that is, omitting contacts, not complying with isolation or giving aggressive responses when they are contacted".
The DGS are yet to announce ttheir decision on this new standard.
Original article available in Portuguese at http://postal.pt/
