Shortening the mandatory isolation period for COVID-positive people from seven to five days could be on the agenda at next week's national cabinet meeting. Should it be?
Dominic Perrottet flags putting COVID-19 isolation periods on next national cabinet agendaMr Perrottet previously raised shortening the isolation period at last month's meeting, but with the latest Omicron wave yet to peak, it was not backed by advice from Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly.
While ACT residents can leave isolation on day seven if they still have symptoms, they must not return to work or enter high-risk settings and are advised to minimise their contact with other people until they’re gone. "At 10 days, almost no one is infectious, so it's between five and 10 days that you need to decide: what's the optimum period that people should keep themselves out of the community?," he told SBS News.
"It's not saying it doesn't help, but even the ones that do isolate for the seven days are often infectious before they go into isolation, so it doesn't cover their entire experience anyway." "Therefore how long the ones that do isolate is less important because you've got a bigger proportion of people that aren't engaged in testing or isolation at all.""I think it's really important that it's backed up with strong advice about what to do the week after isolation, however long isolation is, and that people are really strongly encouraged not to go into high-risk settings, to avoid densely populated indoor areas, to wear masks," she said.
"We know there are a lot of people out there that have been really struggling with how open our society now is, and people who are more risk of severe illness from COVID-19 are feeling quite nervous at the moment and have been sort of putting themselves into isolation or really modifying their behaviour to reduce their risk of catching it," Dr McMullen told SBS News.
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