By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga
Negros Occidental provincial administrator, Atty. Rayfrando Diaz, confirmed yesterday that the province has no policy yet on the shortened quarantine period for vaccinated individuals who are exposed to COVID-19 positive cases.
Diaz made the confirmation following the announcement of Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque on Wednesday that all individuals including those fully vaccinated against COVID-19 must undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine period.
According to Diaz, he and Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson are still discussing the issue.
“Basta mag-contact tracing ta and maigo ka as a close contact even if fully vaccinated ka pa, we cannot treat you differently (When we do contact tracing and you are identified as a close contact even when fully vaccinated, we cannot treat you differently),” he explained.
He said vaccinated or not, they will be required to go RT-PCR testing and also undergo quarantine while awaiting the result.
Even though the COVID-19 vaccines do not give a 100 percent protection that a person will not be infected, the vaccine’s promise is it prevents a person from falling critically ill, prevents hospitalization, and ultimately prevents deaths, Diaz explained.
Based on the National Inter-Agency Task Force (NIATF) decision on Tuesday, Roque said they are temporarily suspending the protocol that allowed for a shortened quarantine period for fully vaccinated individuals who are close contacts of probable and confirmed COVID-19 cases.
The Department of Health (DOH) defines close contact as having exposure during the two days before and the 14 days after the onset of symptoms of an individual with a probable or confirmed case of COVID-19.
The DOH considers a person exposed to an infected individual if he has a “face-to-face contact within one meter and for at least 15 minutes, direct physical contact, direct care for a patient without using personal protective equipment, or other situations as indicated by local risk assessments.”
Roque said the suspension of the shortened quarantine among fully vaccinated individuals with direct contact with an infected person is part of the government’s continued implementation of proactive measures “to slow down the surge in COVID-19 cases and to stop the further spread of the variants.”/DGB, WDJ