Colombia relaxes isolates amid the advance of the Omicron variant

Colombia relaxes isolates amid the advance of the Omicron variant

“It is not necessary to carry out a Covid test since the symptoms are already conclusive evidence of the possibility of the presence of an infection by the Omicron variant,” he added.

As for asymptomatic people who were in contact with patients, “if they are fully vaccinated they are not required to do isolation or a test,” said the Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, quoted in the statement.

On the other hand, those not inoculated must keep seven days of quarantine before any suspicion or confirmation of a contagion.

Ruiz asked, in parallel, “to take extreme basic biosafety measures, such as the use of masks, and avoid visiting the most vulnerable people.”

Colombia detected on December 20 the first three cases of Ómicron, considered highly transmissible, although less lethal than its predecessor Delta, although it has already caused several deaths and the World Health Organization (WHO) reiterated that it cannot be classified as “mild “.

Since December 20, the number of infections soared from around 1,800 a day to more than 23,000 yesterday.

In Colombia, most of the restrictive measures were gradually lifted in the second half of 2021, but at the high cost that the end-of-year celebrations became a strong source of contagion, according to experts.

With a population of 50 million inhabitants, it has added more than 5.2 million cases and 130,000 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the latest official data cited by local media and the AFP news agency.

After almost two years of health emergency, it is the third country with the highest number of patients in the region, behind Brazil and Argentina, and the fourth with the most deaths after Brazil, Mexico and Peru.

About 28.7 million people have been vaccinated with a complete two-dose schedule and some 3.6 million have already received the third booster.

Source From: Ambito

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