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Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach
Photo: Omer Messinger / Getty Images
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach and his colleagues from the federal states presented a recommendation for a new quarantine regulation in a video link.
The paper was drawn up by his ministry together with the Robert Koch Institute and is available to SPIEGEL.
Lauterbach and the experts suggest distinguishing between quarantine and isolation.
A quarantine should therefore take place in the future after contact with an infected person, and isolation after illness.
In general:
Anyone who has been infected with the coronavirus or has had contact with an infected person has to be
in isolation or quarantine for 10 days
.
After seven days, the isolation or quarantine with
subsequent testing
can be ended.
The free testing should be done with a PCR or high quality antigen test if possible.
For professions such as nurses, doctors or policemen, which are part of the critical infrastructure, the following applies:
The quarantine of contact persons can be ended
after five days with a negative PCR result
.
The isolation of infected people can be
ended after seven days with a negative PCR result
.
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At the same time, the previous distinction is no longer made as to whether one has come into contact with the previously dominant virus variant or a so-called "variant of concern".
So far, the quarantine and isolation rules for contact with the Omikron variant have been stricter than the Delta variant.
With this decision, the Ministry of Health and the RKI are taking current developments into account: it is assumed that Omikron will soon also become the dominant variant in Germany.
Lauterbach wants to use the rules to keep the critical infrastructure running.
A shortening of the quarantine times is possible because Omikron has a shorter generation time than Delta - i.e. it is less contagious -, according to the joint paper.
In order to keep the school and day-care center running, there are also shorter quarantine times for children: They only have to be
in quarantine for 5 days
with subsequent testing.
The Federal Ministry of Health and the RKI also propose the following exceptions to the regulation:
Those who have been boosted
can be exempted from the quarantine requirement for contact persons from seven days after their third vaccination.
Even
newly vaccinated people
(from the 14th day and up to two months after the second vaccination) do not have to be in quarantine as contact persons.
The same applies to
those
who have recovered whose illness was less than two months ago.
The recommendation by the Federal Ministry of Health and the RKI is to be discussed at the Health Ministers' Conference and then a topic at the Prime Minister's Conference on Friday.
The federal and state governments want to take decisions on further corona measures at the meeting.
Before the meeting, a draft resolution by some state health ministers was circulating, which provided for a distinction between the quarantine periods between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
mfh
