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France has decided: to halve the duration of isolation from fourteen to seven days for those who tested positive for coronavirus and for those who came into contact with an infected person. This is because, as the Minister of Health explained, it is most contagious in the first five days after the onset of symptoms or after a positive test. Then the contagion decreases very significantly and after a week it remains, but very weak.
Excessive caution (justified)
Here there has been an excess of caution. Recommending 14 days of isolation made sense at the beginning of the epidemic and was right because we still didn’t know anything about this virus, he notes. Mario Clerici, Senior Lecturer in Immunology at the University of Milan – but today we know much more details and such a long quarantine, especially for asymptomatic patients, is excessive. In my opinion, a week without symptoms is more than enough to ensure that the person can no longer infect because, in the meantime, the response mediated by antibodies, T cells and innate immunity takes over.
Objective: greater grip
The shortening of the quarantine will undoubtedly favor better compliance with the rule: one thing, especially for asymptomatic patients, who today represent the majority of positives, remain in isolation for two weeks, another to make a sacrifice for a week. The French option – continued Fabrizio Pregliasco, virologist and medical director of the Galeazzi institute in Milan – interesting and deserves an evaluation especially for the practical aspects towards the population. I think the time has come to consider a change in light of the fact that the first few days of infection are actually the most dangerous.
What could change in Italy?
But could something change in Italy? Luca richeldi, pulmonologist, member of the Scientific Technical Committee suggests that something could happen: a decision that will most likely also be evaluated in Italy, mainly because it would have a great impact in facilitating quarantine measures. It is highly unlikely that a person is still contagious after ten days.. Today we are in a phase where we are probably having a lower and lower emergency pressure maybe we can afford less conservative options.
And on the night of the Modena Unity Party comes the opening of the premiere Giuseppe Conte: Some countries are reflecting on the length of the quarantine, an important perspective. If it were possible to reduce it to 7 days, we could reduce the social and economic costs.
The data points in that direction, thanks in part to a review of 25 studies by scientists at the Oxford Center for Evidence-Based Medicine. Scientists have seen that asymptomatic patients who test positive seven days after swabbing maintain a very low or even no viral load. We need to assess whether the risk is acceptable. – concludes Richeldi -. It could possibly be debated, but my personal idea, a differentiated quarantine for different clinical forms, fewer days for the asymptomatic.
September 9, 2020 (change September 9, 2020 | 08:35)
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