Contacts of confirmed or suspected cases of the omicron variant had been required to isolate for 10 days or until their contact case was found not to be omicron.
This change was announced at a public briefing by Deputy Peter Ferbrache, Chairman of the Civil Contingencies Authority.
It is understood that public health officials were yesterday calling contacts of confirmed or suspected cases of the omicron variant to inform them of the revised and less stringent arrangements.
The Authority decided it would no longer be viable to require 10 days’ isolation from contacts of actual or potential omicron cases following advice from public health officials that the Bailiwick is inevitably facing “a wave” of omicron infections over the next few weeks.
Pictured: At last night’s public briefing, as well as announcing additional restrictions and tighter guidelines to help ‘flatten the curve’ of omicron covid-19 cases, Deputy Peter Ferbrache had good news for contacts of confirmed or suspected cases of omicron, who no longer need to isolate.
“What we’re also doing today – because we’re acting proportionately and we always have done – is removing the requirement for the contacts of omicron cases to isolate. They will now follow the same guidance as any other contact of a case and for most people that will mean lateral flow testing for 10 days,” said Deputy Ferbrache.
“We don’t want the islands to shut down. Isolating contacts [of omicron] would put so many people into isolation so quickly and that’s not proportionate at this stage and would make life much harder for our community overall.”
Dr Nicola Brink, Medical Officer of Health, said: “This is part of our calm and proportionate response. We look at the situation and we plan and we’ve done that since the start of the pandemic.”
More information about isolation requirements is available on the States’ website HERE.