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COVID-19: Health agency plans to cut quarantine period to 7-10 days

COVID-19 Isolation Centre in Nigeria Photo: BBC

*Health officials are hoping the change will translate to a larger number of people isolating for the recommended time

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

As part of the latest development in the treatment of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic patients, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is concluding plans to shorten the advised quarantine period to between seven and 10 days.

ConsumerConnect reports the CDC and the World Health Organisation (WHO) both suggest a 14-day self-isolation period for people potentially exposed to the virus currently.

However, in reducing the hitherto quarantine time, the health and diseases agency hopes more people will fully isolate for the recommended time, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Henry Walke, a senior CDC official said: “We do think that the work that we’ve done, and some of the studies we have and the modeling data that we have, shows that we can with testing shorten quarantine.

“Hopefully, people would be better able to adhere to quarantine if it was, for example, seven to 10 days.”

Walke stated that a test to ensure that the person quarantining is negative for the devastating Coronavirus pandemic would be part of the new guidelines.

If the test returns a negative result, he said the person’s “probability of going on and developing an infection after that is pretty low,” said the agency official.

He as well noted that there is a risk that some infections would be missed, but public health officials believe the shorter quarantine period would be worth it since a larger number of people would be more likely to quarantine effectively.

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