On Friday's news - we told you about the internal memorandum from the Ministry of Health varying the duration of sick leave for persons with COVID 19.
Well, as hundreds more cases are confirmed everyday, the details of this new directive are becoming very relevant for workers and employers. A release issued today says "the ministry has updated its national guidelines on the isolation period for COVID positive persons in accordance with WHO best practices."
This morning on Sunup on 7, the Acting Deputy Director for the Central Health Region, Melissa Diaz outlined the new requirements and the reason for adjusting it in the time of Omicron:
Dr. Melissa Diaz Musa, Deputy Director, Central Health Region
"So when we looked at the transmissibility of this omicron and when we looked at the sustaining our economy and trying to get, especially with our health care workers ensuring that the integrity and that our health system is able to treat persons when people do need the treatment. We looked at the timeframe of when persons were testing negative after being positive and that time frame had lessened to about 10 days and so with OMICRON because the incubation period appears to be shorter, persons start with symptoms two to three days after exposure and a lot of persons have become much better after two or three days after they experience one or two nights of fever, joint pain and then after that feel well and when they were tested at day 10 or day 9 they already tested negative. So we felt that its important instead of having well people sitting at home waiting for this 14 day period and especially healthcare workers, we need to get our healthcare workers back especially if they are vaccinated, boosted and asymptomatic and they are now testing negative. We can come back into the workplace and provide the service that we need to provide for persons who are ill. So that was the basis behind really reducing this time, getting people back into the workforce but definitely, the memo was sent out to the regional managers so the doctors and nurses will make that decision, so it's not a blanket to say that your employer will call you and say 10 is up, come back. There are certain things you got to be, you got to be asymptomatic, or you got to be at least 72 hours without a fever or at least 72 hours without needing Tylenol, ibuprofen - so if you fit certain category, you come back and you'll get a release letter from us to go back into work."
So, to be clear: "the isolation period for persons who test positive has been reduced from 14 days to 10 days for the public, and from 10 days to seven days for healthcare workers and other essential workers, starting from the screening date on which the person tested positive." This only applies for asymptomatic persons or persons who have passed three days with no symptoms.
