Omicron wall – quarantine for vaccinated people fuels fear of infrastructure collapse

People who have been vaccinated twice are spared the quarantine obligation after contact with a person who tested positive. Taskforce boss Tanja Stadler wants to quarantine those who have been vaccinated without a booster. There is no scientific reason to treat vaccinated people differently than unvaccinated people if they have not yet received a booster, she said recently.

Even people who had been vaccinated twice could become infected with the Omikron variant and spread it, says Stadler when asked by 20 Minuten. Therefore, in the current situation, it makes sense that they too go into quarantine if they have had direct contact with infected people.

Since Omikron first appeared in Switzerland at the beginning of December, people who have been vaccinated must also be quarantined if there is any suspicion of contact with Omikron infected people. If the new variant dominates completely, this could soon affect everyone who had close contact with infected people: “Since it is to be expected that the vast majority of infections will soon be caused by Omikron, there is no need to differentiate between the individual variants,” says Stadler.

The impending quarantine hammer for vaccinated people causes a lot of explosive material for 20-minute readers. “What else do you get vaccinated for?” Asks “Berni_77”. “Marilu02”, on the other hand, defends the project: “I think everyone should be quarantined – vaccinated or not.” As a double vaccinated person, she was allowed to work normally and thus spread the virus.

Just two days ago, research of 20 minutes had shown that business, politics and science are calling for the quarantine rules to be relaxed. On the contrary, the fact that the task force now wants to tighten this has met with rejection from politicians.

“Sending double vaccinations to quarantine just because they did not get a booster appointment is unacceptable discrimination,” says FDP National Councilor Marcel Dobler.

It is untenable that the quarantine is under discussion without any data from the hospitals. “If you knew when the hospitalized patients were vaccinated and whether they had previous illnesses, you could take risk-based measures – instead of sending vaccinated people into quarantine.”

In its scenarios, the task force expects almost 20,000 new corona cases every day in the first week of January. Omikron will account for almost 100 percent of infections in the coming weeks, Tanja Stadler said at a media conference. The federal government fears an infrastructure collapse in the event of a violent omicron wave.

“If, in the future, people who have been vaccinated twice have to be quarantined in the event of a positive contact, maintaining the infrastructure and basic services will become a much bigger problem,” says Dobler.

Health politicians also see a false incentive in quarantine for vaccinated people. “Someone who lay flat for two days after the vaccination will reconsider the booster vaccination.” If there is the risk of being vaccinated and, later, perhaps even boosted, equated with unvaccinated people, the willingness to accept side effects of the vaccination decreases.

SP National Councilor Yvonne Feri sees the quarantine for double vaccinations as an efficient means of preventing contact. “But vaccinated people are increasingly wondering why they are threatened with practically the same measures as those who have not been vaccinated.” After all, many people would have had themselves vaccinated in order to regain a certain normalcy.

The health politician describes the quarantine as “borderline” with regard to the infrastructure. “Omikron is likely to be in chaos one way or another, because many people get sick and fail at the same time.” If the vaccinated only had to stay at home because of a positive contact, bottlenecks could no longer be averted. “At best, the situation could be defused with a shortened quarantine.”

In the USA, this is already the case with corona infected people. There the quarantine will be shortened from ten to five days. On Wednesday, Spain followed suit with a reduction to seven days.