Not staying at home for ten, but five days after close contact with a corona infected. With this innovation, the cabinet wants to make life in quarantine somewhat easier from 1 December. However, the quarantine must be closed with a test. If it is negative, you can go outside.
The relaxation is remarkable: so far the government has taken the strict position that testing without complaints is pointless. After all, anyone who has no complaints has little chance of infecting others, was the thought.
But now that the test capacity is expanding, people want to use the test to “exonerate” people suspected of corona, the cabinet now reasons. However, one is only allowed to go to the test street after five days: the period during which about half of the infected suffer from complaints.
Pruning shears
It is the second time that the cabinet has put the secateurs in quarantine. In August, the home sitting period went back from 14 to 10 days, after signals from the GGDs that many people were not properly complying with the quarantine. There are still signs of this kind: research by the ‘corona behavior unit’ of the RIVM showed last weekend that of all people who have had close contact with an infected person, only half actually stay at home.
In quarantine – not to be confused with “isolation”, where the person sitting at home has symptoms himself – the intention is to stay at home because one may have been infected by a covid patient. Because the coronavirus is at its most contagious just before one becomes ill, the home sitter prevents contamination of others, is the thought.
No reluctance
It is unlikely that all quarantine problems will soon be resolved. RIVM research published last weekend shows that people have various reasons for not adhering to the home stay rules. They usually have nothing to do with reluctance: one person has to go out for work because otherwise he has no income, the other lets the dog out and in doing so resolves to keep extra distance from others.
To solve the problems, the RIVM proposes a whole series of measures, ranging from information that should better prepare people for a possible quarantine, to financial compensation for people who lose income if they can no longer leave the house.
Incidentally, the group that must be quarantined on the advice of the GGD is relatively small. But this may change if the GGDs resume the source and contact investigation and more people receive an automated alarm via the corona delder app.
