People with a positive PCR test may not need 30 days of testing
Updates: 01/23/2022 14:15
Released: 23.01.2022, 12:09
Prague – People who had a positive PCR test for covid-19 would not have to test 30 days after its implementation. Proposed by the Ministry of Health, the government will discuss the proposal on Wednesday. The change could take effect on Monday, January 31. Information Diary N Ministry spokesman Ondřej Jakob confirmed to ČTK today.
Jakob told ČTK that the ministry is proposing this measure due to the spread of omicron variants. “We are preparing this material for Wednesday’s government. It should apply from January 31,” Jakob told ČTK. According to him, a 30-day period would be calculated from the PCR test.
“We are preparing to simplify the isolation system, in agreement with experts we have come to the conclusion that after the disease, due to the way omicron behaves, when a person ends up in isolation, we actually take him as a person who cannot infect for 30 days,” he said in Czech Television Minister of Health Vlastimil Válek (TOP 09). He reiterated that the current testing system would like to “shut down” in mid-February.
The deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee for health care and the shadow minister of health Julius Špičák (ANO) stated in the Czech Television that he would speed up the reduction of testing. According to him, the difference between the volume of testing in Austria and the Netherlands is fourteen times, but the infection behaves the same in both countries. In addition, it is easy to falsify the results of self-testing in companies.
From this week, it is tested twice a week at work and once a week at schools. In companies, if an employee has a positive antigenic self-test, he automatically goes to a five-day quarantine. After its completion, it is tested again at work. Unlike testing in schools, it is not necessary to undergo a confirmatory PCR test at work. However, if the employee completes it and has a negative result, the quarantine ends.
The daily N pointed out that in recent weeks, when isolations and quarantines were reduced to five days, it happened that, for example, children returned from school from isolation, but according to the PCR test they were still positive. Whole families and other contacts were quarantined.
