WHO changes the guidelines: no negative buffer is needed to be considered cured by Covid
The WHO has changed the rules: only three days without symptoms and goodbye isolation. Regardless of the severity of the infection
After three days without symptoms, you can say goodbye to isolation. The World Health Organization has in fact changed the cards on the tables and has communicated that it will no longer be necessary to have the double negative buffer to certify the healing, and therefore to leave the home. They will indeed be sufficient 3 days without symptoms to return free. Regardless of the severity of the infection.
Goodbye to the double negative buffer
As reported by Courier, the new criteria imposed byWHO they are essentially two. Symptomatic patients will have to wait 10 days after the onset of symptoms, and at least 3 days without symptoms, this also applies to fever and respiratory symptoms. For patients asymptomatic instead, we talk about 10 days after the positive swab result. This means that if a person has had symptoms for two days, after 10 + 3 days, or 13 from the beginning of the symptoms, they will be able to get out of isolation. If, on the other hand, a patient has had symptoms for 14 days, he will be able to say he is free at the end of the 17th (14 + 3). If the symptoms lasted 30 days, he will be considered out of isolation on day 33 (30 + 3).
This change is due to the fact that the active virus, that is, what can replicate and infect other subjects, would not be present, except in very rare cases, in the patient's respiratory samples 9 days after the onset of coronavirus symptoms. This occurs especially in cases of mild infection, together with the formation of neutralizing antibodies. The patient is then freed from isolation based on clinical criteria, and no longer on repeat swab examination. This may indeed continue to find non-viable traces of RNA for several weeks, although not dangerous.
The problems that creates a long isolation period
Not to mention that being in solitary confinement for a long time can have a negative impact both on the person himself and on society, and on access to medical treatment. The new rules of the World Health Organization therefore serve to reduce the period of isolation for many patients who are not risky for themselves or for other individuals. This would also increase the resources for new asymptomatic swabs. Not to mention the savings: many of these swabs are performed precisely to certify healing from the coronavirus.
The epidemiologist Luigi Lopalco explained that this issue is very important, as it is “There are many people who are prisoners in the house for weeks who show no symptoms and also happen almost di positive swabs after two negative swabs. We are sending these tests to specialized laboratories to understand if it is a non-viable RNA residue or if the virus grows in culture and therefore could still be contagious. The American CDCs have implemented the new WHO guidelines, let's see what Italy will decide ".