Pandemic
Five days instead of seven: RKI recommends shortening the corona isolation
Anyone who is sick at home with Corona should only have to be in quarantine for five days in the future
© tommaso79 / Getty Images
The federal and state governments had already agreed to shorten the corona quarantine, and now the Robert Koch Institute is also giving the green light. In the future, infected people can test themselves after five days of isolation.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has recommended reducing the prescribed isolation period to five days in the case of corona disease. The RKI has now published new guidelines, according to which free testing on day five of isolation is “strongly” recommended, but no longer mandatory. The health ministers of the federal and state governments had already agreed last week on a new regulation of the isolation order, but wanted to wait for the RKI recommendation.
Two federal states had already lowered the deadline
So far, people infected with corona have usually had to isolate themselves for seven days and then have had to test negative. Bavaria and Saxony, among others, had already reduced the previous mandatory isolation of infected people from ten days to five days if those affected had no symptoms for 48 hours.
In most countries, the regulation still applies that the isolation for corona infected people can be ended after seven days by free testing. Otherwise the isolation ends after ten days. The RKI guideline could now form the basis for a renewed nationwide standardization of the rules demanded by doctors.
Corona incidence at 632.2
The shortening of the quarantine period was also decided because of the falling number of cases. The Robert Koch Institute gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Tuesday morning at 632.2. On Monday the incidence was 639.5, compared to 909.1 a week ago. The value quantifies the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants over a period of seven days.
As the RKI further announced, the number of new infections reported within 24 hours was 113,522, after 4032 the day before and 136,798 a week ago. The total number of cases of infection recorded in Germany since the beginning of the corona pandemic has increased to 24,927,339. In the past 24 hours, 240 new deaths related to the corona virus have also been reported.