Covid-19 treatment czar Leopoldo Vega on Tuesday said that the Department of Health (DOH) would come up with a proposal shortening the quarantine period of fully vaccinated individuals who have Covid-19 but are showing no symptoms.
The Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases recently set to five days the quarantine period for fully vaccinated health workers exposed to or infected with Covid-19.
In a Palace briefing, Vega said the shortened quarantine period was based on data from the US and Europe.
“Alam naman natin na itong Omicron, even with the spike in cases, [is] mild and they found out that because of this high transmissibility, ang incubation period niya is about two to three days lang,” Vega said.
“Ang reason naman na naging five days ‘yan especially for the asymptomatic is because we believe that on the fifth day if you are vaccinated, the viral load is very low and you can no longer transmit the virus—or you are not contagious,” he added.
Vega said the DOH wanted to cut the quarantine period for the general population to “streamline” the country’s isolation and quarantine protocols.
Currently, fully vaccinated asymptomatics are required to isolate for at least 10 days after exposure to Covid-19.
The Philippines has 181,016 active Covid-19 cases as of Jan. 11. John Ezekiel J. Hirro