Because the quarantine will be reduced to 10 days (and a single swab will be made)

Change of course also for Italy: the CTS has approved the reduction of the quarantine from 14 to 10 days and a single buffer, instead of two, to interrupt it

(Photo: Niels Wenstedt / BSR Agency / Getty Images ) Quarantine will be reduced from 14 to 10 days. While for the positives, a single negative pad will suffice, instead of two, to interrupt the isolation. These are the measures approved during the meeting of the Technical-Scientific Committee, which stressed the need to update the diagnostic path of coronavirus positivity cases. In the wake of the recommendations of the WHO and the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Cdc), Italy has also decided to restrict the quarantine period and eliminate the need for a double swab, as already happens in Germany, where the isolation lasts ten days, and in France even 7. But is it safe to reduce the period of isolation? And what is the scientific evidence that demonstrates this?

The new CTS protocol, in summary, provides for an isolation of at least 10 days for coronavirus positives (of which the last 3 in complete absence of symptoms) and, in the final, a single molecular buffer. If the test result is positive, according to the Ansa report, the patient will have to do another 7 days of isolation, and undergo a new tampon. If this is positive again, he will have to extend the quarantine for another 4 days. Once these are passed, regardless of the result of the last swab, he will still be exempt from isolation and can return to normal life.

While for asymptomatic patients who do not become negativized after 21 days, with a positive response to the swab carried out on the tenth and 17th days, the quarantine will be 21 days, in fact, but not beyond. In asymptomatic cases, the CTS informs, the isolation is interrupted in any case on the 21st day as "the available evidence does not document any case of the presence of competent virus for replication", reads a note. In other words, after this period of time, the viral load is so low that the patient is no longer considered infectious, as demonstrated by international studies. Finally, even for close contacts, fiduciary isolation will have to last 10 days, with a rapid or final molecular antigenic swab, which could be made by family doctors and pediatricians. "In order to achieve the strategic objective connected to the sustainability of the diagnostic system of cases of coronavirus positivity", they say from the CTS, "we also believe it is necessary to involve general practitioners and pediatricians of free choice for the precious and fundamental contribution that they will be able to ensure in the execution of swabs, in order to essentially support the health system in the country ".

We recall that the first to propose the easing of quarantine measures was the WHO, when last June it decided to change the definition of a patient recovered from the coronavirus. As we told you, in fact, the recommendations for discharge from quarantine, without the need for a double swab, included: for symptomatic patients 10 days after the onset of symptoms, plus at least 3 days without symptoms (including fever and respiratory symptoms ). For asymptomatic patients, on the other hand, 10 days after the positive test for the new coronavirus.

A choice, explained by the WHO, taken in the light of the ever increasing evidence, according to which the virus is rarely present in respiratory samples of patients 9 days after the onset of symptoms. "The updated criteria reflect recent findings that patients whose symptoms have resolved may still test positive for the novel coronavirus using the Rt-Pcr swab for many weeks," the document reads. "Despite this positive test result, these patients are unlikely to be infectious and therefore unlikely to be able to transmit the virus to another person."

Subsequently, the American CDC also expressed the same opinion. Mentioning over 15 international studies that analyzed the length of the infection, the persistence of the viral load, the infectiveness of asymptomatic patients, they highlighted how the amount of live viral material in the respiratory tract was significantly reduced immediately after the onset of symptoms. Not only that: according to studies, the duration of infectivity in most patients is no longer than ten days from the onset of symptoms. "The evidence tells us that contagiousness drops drastically 7-10 days after the onset of symptoms, and that after 10 days it is difficult to find traces of the virus", Antonella Viola, immunologist, scientific director of the 'City of Hope and Ordinary Pediatric Research Institute of General Pathology at the University of Padua, in which it suggested adhering to WHO recommendations, restricting quarantine and eliminating the double swab.