Gov’t studying shortened COVID isolation, quarantine periods for fully vaccinated individuals

This is a general view a hall converted into a 500-bed capacity COVID-19 quarantine facility at the World Trade Center in Manila on April 23, 2020, one of the facilities to house mild cases of the disease. (Photo by Ted ALJIBE / AFP)

MANILA, Philippines — The government is looking into shortening of isolation and quarantine periods for individuals fully vaccinated against COVID-19, presidential adviser for COVID-19 response Secretary Vince Dizon said on Monday.

The Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases earlier approved the shortened  isolation and quarantine periods for fully vaccinated health workers.

“Sa ngayon po, for healthcare workers lang po pero pinag-aaralan na rin po ng ating mga eksperto ang ginagawa sa ibang bansa tulad ng Amerika at Europa na nagpapaiksi ng isolation lalo na para sa mga bakunado na,” Dizon said.

(Currently, for healthcare workers only, but our experts are looking into what other countries like America and Europe are doing, which is shortening the isolation especially for those who are vaccinated.)

“Hopefully po, magkakaroon tayo ng mga pagbabago sa ating mga polisiya sa mga susunod na linggo, pero sa ngayon po, healthcare workers lang po,” he continued.

(Hopefully, we will have changes in our policies next week, but for now, only for healthcare workers.)

Based on the IATF guidelines, the Hospital Infection Prevention and Control Committees and the Provincial Health Officers may trim the isolation period of fully vaccinated health workers up to five days from 10 days.

Meanwhile, fully immunized health workers who are asymptomatic close contacts of infected individuals may no longer undergo quarantine.

For the general population, however, isolation and quarantine periods remain unchanged, the Department of Health recently said.

The isolation period of COVID-19 patients who are asymptomatic or those with mild to moderate symptoms is 10 days or depending on the advice of the doctor.

COVID-19 patients with severe and critical symptoms, meanwhile, should isolate for 21 days or depending on the advice of the doctor.

Quarantine of close contacts is seven days for fully vaccinated individuals and 14 days for those with incomplete vaccine or without a vaccine.

As of January 9, around 52.3 million individuals in the country are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.