Health ministers advise on shortened quarantine

Berlin In view of the rapidly expanding Omikron variant, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) wants to shorten the quarantine period significantly. This emerges from a draft from Lauterbach’s ministry for today’s conference with the department colleagues of the federal states, which is available to the Handelsblatt. A decision is expected for Wednesday afternoon.

• The draft distinguishes between quarantine for contact persons and isolation for infected people. In the future, the quarantine and isolation time is to be shortened from 14 to ten days.
• The quarantine and isolation should be terminated prematurely after seven days by means of an antigen or PCR test.
• Staff in hospitals and nursing homes should be able to release themselves from quarantine using a PCR test after just five days.
• Children should also be able to free themselves from quarantine after five days using a PCR and rapid test.
• People with a third vaccination should be exempted from the quarantine obligation. The same applies to people whose illness or a second vaccination was less than two months ago.