Olivier Véran wants to avoid the paralysis of the country. A few hours after the announcements of the Scientific Council, which declared to fear a “disorganization” of the company in January because of the sick leaves, the Minister of Health announced that the rules of isolation for the cases contacts would be brought to to evolve.
Towards new forms of isolation
“I asked the Scientific Council that we could determine at the latest at the beginning of next week what will be the isolation modalities. Namely, are we treating the Omicron variant as we had treated the Delta variant”, Olivier Véran said Thursday after visiting a vaccination center for children in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.
Increase in the number of contact cases
Contact cases continue to increase because of the highly contagious Omicron. According to the Ministry of Health, the variant will be in the majority in the country within “48 to 72 hours”. The executive’s objective is therefore to change the rules of isolation to avoid a “phenomenon of paralysis”.
Olivier Véran follows the recommendations of the Scientific Council. The authority has indeed indicated that it would be necessary to lighten the rules of isolation to limit a “disorganization” of society. Especially since two British studies published Wednesday say that the Omicron variant is much less dangerous than the Delta variant, with 20 to 30% less risk of hospitalization.
Reduction of the duration of solitary confinement
Several avenues are being studied by the Ministry of Health to change the isolation rules. Currently, a person affected by Covid-19 must self-isolate for ten days, but the government could reduce the length of this period to seven days, as is the case in England.
The second scenario concerns a contact and vaccinated person who works in an essential sector, such as food distribution, energy, transport or health. If she lives in the same household as a positive person who may carry the Omicron variant, the period of isolation could be reduced from 17 to ten days.
If Olivier Véran fears 100,000 cases per day, that would make a million contact cases, or ten million sick leaves each day. Reductions in isolation rules seem inevitable.