Covid quarantine period could be lowered to 10 days

People who are likely to be infected with the coronavirus, for example because they had contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19 or came from a coronavirus hotspot, should be told to quarantine at home for 10 days, instead of the current 14 days, the Outbreak Management Team (OMT) said in advice to the government, NOS reports.

The current 14 days quarantine was based on the incubation period of the virus. It takes a maximum of 12 days for an infected person to start showing symptoms. For extra safety, the OMT added two days to that.

But according to the OMT, the currently available scientific literature and data from the GGDs' source and contact tracing show that 99 percent of people who become ill of SARS-Cov-2 start showing symptoms within 10 days. Over 97 percent showed symptoms within seven days.

And only 5 percent of so-called category 2 contacts - people who had contact with someone who had close contact with a Covid-19 patient - became infected with the virus themselves. The OMT therefore believes that shortening the quarantine period to ten days is a safe measure that will not result in many infections being missed.