Reduced quarantine: hypothesis 5 days or less for vaccinated with three doses

The central issue is time. The incubation period of the Omicron variant appears to be shorter, while the spread is faster with symptoms that appear, for vaccinated, to be milder. With the current rules, however, millions of people are ending up in quarantine, including contacts, even if not positive, of an infected person. The risk is to move towards a blockade of the country’s activities without declaring an official lockdown, perhaps blocking essential activities such as transport and hospitals. To understand if quarantine times can be reduced, as requested by some virologists and regional presidents, the CTS has been convened for December 29, which should give its opinion to the government.

The executive will then decide. Inside there are voices in favor of a differentiation. Explains the undersecretary of health Andrea Costa, in an interview with Corriere della Sera: «78% of citizens are vaccinated with two doses, about 10% have not had any, 30 have already had the third booster dose. A differentiation at this point must be made: for those who have the booster, a quarantine of less than seven days can be envisaged. For those who are not vaccinated, the quarantine is 10 days. For those who have already done two doses it is 7. We would not be credible in inviting the recall if we were not convinced that the booster gives greater protection».

“We had a reflection with Minister Speranza on the number of people in quarantine”, said the emergency commissioner Francesco Figliuolo, “scientists are studying how to review the rules”. The numbers are clear: two million people in quarantine in Italy, taking the case of the city of Milan, one citizen out of 18 is locked up at home by the virus.

The key to deciding whether to reduce quarantine is to understand how many people affected by the Omicron variant end up in hospital with serious consequences. If this number is low, it will be easier to reduce the quarantine which today is 7 days for those who have had contact and are vaccinated, by 10 for those who are not vaccinated. It could become 5 days for those who have had the third dose or completed the primary vaccination course with two doses less than four months ago. If there were no symptoms during the period of isolation, the second swab might not be needed to get out of the quarantine for the vaccinated.

There are those from the political world who ask to completely eliminate the quarantine for those who are vaccinated even with the booster dose. There are those who bet on lockdown for the unvaccinated like the German one, but the Super Green Pass is already, for the government, an ongoing measure in this direction. From Confindustria, the president Carlo Bonomi asks for the vaccination obligation: «There is a risk of slowing the recovery, leaving room for the pandemic. I understand that it is difficult for any democracy to explain the need for compulsory vaccination, but I think it must be done “.