The contact investigation in corona cases will soon be scaled down and the quarantine advice for vaccinated housemates and contacts will be cancelled. The OMT calls this responsible now that more and more people are protected by vaccination against severe Covid-19. The cabinet accepts the advice.
The RIVM and the GGD are still working on the elaboration of the plans and the adaptation of the protocols and call scripts for the source and contact investigators. Here are the key changes likely to take effect in the course of next week:
The source and contact investigation will now be ‘tailor-made’. This means, among other things, that an infected person is still informed by the GGD and that the source of the infection is sought. A new feature is that the infected person subsequently informs his housemates and close contacts (who have been less than 1.5 meters away for more than 15 minutes).
If an infected person is unable to inform his contacts himself or if there are special circumstances such as an environment with a low vaccination rate or an infection with a contagious variant of the coronavirus, the GGD can still take care of informing contacts. Non-close contacts no longer need to be notified.
Vaccinated no longer in quarantine
The rules regarding quarantine after contact with an infected person are changing. Housemates or close contacts who were fully vaccinated at least 14 days ago or who tested positive less than six months ago no longer need to be quarantined at home. In the Netherlands, about 4 million people have now been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 for more than 14 days.
For roommates and close contacts who have not been vaccinated or who have only had one of the two shots the old advice continues to apply: ten days in quarantine in case of contact with an infected person. You can end this after day 5 if you test negative at the GGD on that day.
Direct testing is no longer necessary for housemates and close contacts after contact with an infected person, but still after the fifth day and even if they have no complaints. The advice to test in case of complaints continues to apply to everyone. The stay-at-home advice for roommates of someone with corona complaints (even if they are waiting for a test result) expired last week.
‘Sufficient insight into epidemic’
The Outbreak Management Team (OMT) advised last week that the adjustments in source and contact research, quarantine and testing are possible because more and more people are now vaccinated. according to research by RIVM vaccinated contacts have a 60 percent lower chance of getting infected than non-vaccinated contacts.
The OMT expects that scaling down the contact investigation will provide sufficient insight into the epidemic. According to the RIVM, the models underlying this take into account the advance of the more contagious delta variant in Europe.
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