People infected with covid but without symptoms will only have to quarantine for seven days. This was unanimously approved on Wednesday at a meeting of the Public Health Commission, the body at which the Spanish Ministry of Health and representatives of all the autonomous communities of Spain sit. According to the new guidelines, people who have tested positive for coronavirus will only have to quarantine for one week, instead of the ten days established until now. However, those who do show symptoms will have to extend their isolation to 10 days. Similarly, unvaccinated persons who have been in close contact with an infected person will only isolate for seven consecutive days. No quarantine is necessary for fully vaccinated people, even after close contact with people who have tested positive.
Seven days
Several regional governments had requested some days ago that the possibility of shortening the quarantine be considered, as other countries have done already, such the USA, where infected people only have to self-isolate for five days. On Wednesday, the Public Health Commission finally "unanimously" approved the new measure shortening the quarantine period from ten to seven days, after the meeting of the Interterritorial Council. Specifically, the territories that requested it were Catalonia, Madrid, Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León and the Balearic Islands. The Catalan secretary of Public Health, Carmen Cabezas, had already stated that the Catalan Ministry "is not against" shortening the isolation period.
When asked about this issue, Cabezas pointed out that in this sixth wave we are facing a very high number of cases, all of the Omicron variant, which seems to be less severe and has a shorter transmission period. Also, she pointed out the need to take into account "the social impact of quarantines of asymptomatic persons".
Scientific evidence
One of the first countries to change its quarantine rules was the United States. This week, the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed the change suggested by both President Joe Biden and the government's chief epidemiologist, Anthony Fauci. The new recommendations include reducing from ten to five days the isolation period for asymptomatic people in case of infection. This has been accepted after research showed that Omicron is more contagious than other covid-19 mutations, but less severe.
In a public statement, the CDC explained that this change is based on scientific evidence according to which most infections occur at the onset of the disease, on the first and second day of symptoms becoming evident and two or three days after that. Therefore, people who test positive should self-isolate for five days if they are asymptomatic, and once that period is over, they should continue to wear a mask for another five days to minimise the risk of infecting others.