Health reduces coronavirus quarantine from 14 to 10 days for close contacts

A man with a mask, this Saturday in the Madrid district of Vallecas.Manu Fernandez / AP

The quarantines of close contacts of a positive case for covid-19 will be shorter.

The Public Health Commission of the Ministry of Health has approved a modification of the protocols that includes reducing the isolation of people close to a person with covid-19 from 14 to 10 days.

The Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, had already advanced this Tuesday morning that there was "a broad agreement" with the autonomous communities to adopt this proposal.

In fact, Navarra was already doing it and Catalonia has also announced that it will launch this measure from next week.

Health has also endorsed incorporating the new antigenic tests - faster and with high reliability - as a tool for the early detection of covid-19.

En español

• Spanish Health Ministry finalizing agreement with regions to reduce coronavirus quarantine from 14 to 10 days

According to the current protocol of the Ministry of Health, a positive case for coronavirus can reduce isolation after 10 days if it has been without fever or any symptoms for more than 72 hours.

Close contacts of a positive, meanwhile, should remain in quarantine for 14 days, although it is contemplated to lift the confinement if a PCR with a negative result is performed on the tenth day.

The novelty approved this Tuesday by the Public Health Commission is to definitively reduce the quarantine of close contacts to 10 days without the need for a PCR at the end of this period.

In video: The Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, this Tuesday at a press conference at the Palacio de la Moncloa after the Council of Ministers (Europa Press)

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the scientific community had agreed on the term of 14 days because that was the maximum incubation period for the virus.

However, evidence from recent months has revealed that beyond the 10th day, the probability of contagion is substantially reduced.

In addition, the social and economic difficulties to comply with the isolation of the contacts has precipitated that the Administrations study to reduce the closures to facilitate their compliance.

In fact, on September 7, the director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Simón, already acknowledged that Spain was considering reducing isolation at 10 days.

The experts consulted point in line with the central Executive.

"" There are many problems to comply with quarantine and isolation. If not, it is not explained that there is so much transmission. It seems prudent and sensible to reduce it to 10 days, "says Jesús Molina Cabrillana, from the Spanish Society of Preventive Medicine, Health Public and Hygiene. The epidemiologist considers that "the vast majority of positives are detected within 10 days." "The incubation period is 10 days at most. Beyond that, it is very rare for it to occur. It does not make sense. wait four more days ", explains the expert. Toni Trilla, head of Preventive Medicine at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, ​​agrees that the reduction of quarantine is" an acceptable compromise. "" It can help people to better comply with quarantines. Yes We apply it to schools, for example, where children in a class have to isolate themselves if a classmate tests positive, we are talking about losing only 10 days of class. The proportion of contacts who can develop the infection beyond

The tenth day is very small.

Holland says it is less than 1% ”.

The risk assumed by reducing quarantines is counterbalanced, experts say, by the benefits it entails.

Even in a situation like the current one, when the epidemic curve continues to rise throughout Spain and social restrictions are tightening in areas as populated as Madrid.

"It is an appropriate and convenient measure to do now because it is when a lot of people are being told to quarantine and it is necessary that they comply with it," explains Benito Almirante, head of Infectious Diseases at the Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona.

Cabrillana also points out that the reduction in quarantine also has "employment implications" for isolated people and "will reduce the workload of trackers and primary care", which is now taking over all the monitoring of infected cases and their contacts.

Spain is not the first country to aim to lower quarantines to facilitate compliance.

France, for example, announced a couple of weeks ago that it will reduce the isolation from 14 to seven days for those with symptoms of covid-19, those who have undergone a PRC test and the result has been negative, and those who have been in contact with sick people.

The committee of experts of the French Government that urged this measure justified that in some sectors the quarantines were carried out irregularly and, in addition, according to the scientific evidence available, the contagion capacity beyond the eighth day was very exceptional.

The Netherlands, for its part, has also reduced the quarantine to 10 days, and Germany is even considering lowering it to five days.

Trilla advocates evaluating the effectiveness of the measure.

“We have to see if we improve in quarantines or people keep escaping.

There are very complex economic and social situations that make quarantine difficult ”, she admits.

And remember that quarantines are one more arm in the fight against covid-19: "It doesn't matter a quarantine of five, 10 or 14 days, if a good contact tracing is not made."

Information about the coronavirus

- Here you can follow the last hour on the evolution of the pandemic

- This is how the coronavirus curve evolves in Spain and in each autonomy

- Download the tracking application for Spain

- Search engine: The new normal by municipalities

- Guide to action against the disease