Russia eased restrictions for COVID patients and those in contact with them

Contacts with patients will no longer be quarantined, and those who have been treated for COVID-19 for more than a week will not have to take a PCR test upon discharge

Russia has eased coronavirus restrictions for infected people and those who came into contact with them. Relevant resolution Chief Sanitary Doctor was published on the portal of legal information the day before, on Sunday it came into force.

The changes relate to the rules for the prevention of coronavirus infection. In particular:

• Contacts with sick people will no longer be sent to quarantine. The head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, announced the cancellation of such a measure in the middle of the week, explaining the changes by the spread of the omicron strain, due to the characteristics of which (it is quickly transmitted, and the disease often occurs without symptoms), such restrictions lose their meaning.

  Moscow operational headquarters explainedthat this decision also applies to those who were sent to self-isolation before it came into force. If a person was issued a sick leave as a contact person, then on Monday, February 7, it will be closed automatically.

• Those treated for COVID-19 will be discharged for more than a week without a negative test for coronavirus. If the treatment period turned out to be shorter, then the test is still required. The patient will be discharged if a negative test result is received no earlier than three days after a positive test was received.
• Gloves excluded from the list of measures to combat the spread of the virus. Now, only washing hands, wearing medical masks and using antiseptics have remained in the list of hygiene rules listed in the decree. In addition, Rospotrebnadzor points out the importance of maintaining a social distance of 1.5–2 m to break the chain of infections. At the beginning of the pandemic, gloves were required to be worn in public places in many regions of Russia, including Moscow. In the capital, this requirement was canceled in the summer of 2021.
• In Moscow, the duration of treatment for COVID-19 was reduced to 7 days. The new rules apply to those who have been diagnosed since February 6. They will be able to come out of self-isolation as early as 7 days after they have confirmed COVID-19 if they do not have symptoms. Those who became infected before February 6 will need to stay in quarantine for the entire 14-day period.

Since mid-January, a sharp increase in the incidence has continued in Russia. If on January 15, more than 27 thousand infected people were detected in the country, then on February 5, the operational headquarters reported 177 thousand cases per day, with 18 thousand hospitalized.