Amid record COVID cases, Australia, Spain & Italy seeks ease in isolation & testing rules

Despite registering a record number of COVID-19 cases, several countries including, Spain, Australia and Italy are seeking to ease the testing and isolation norms. While addressing a press conference, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he wanted to make urgent changes to COVID-19 testing rules to ease pressure on testing sites. Morrison said that the Omicron variant was a game-changer as it has overburdened the country health services within a month. Morrison added the new modus operandi needed to be "reset" at the earliest.

"The new COVID variant demands us to embark a change of how we are managing the COVID-19, and we need to reset how we think about the pandemic, and how we manage ourselves and the things we need to do as governments," The Guardian quoted Australia's PM as saying. According to the proposed rule, people need to go to mandatory PCR tests or isolate themselves while arriving from any foreign country. Morrison cited the change was necessary to cut long lines at test sites. As of now, he said that a person has to wait at least 72 to 96 hours for the test results.

Italy has also changed the isolation rules 

According to the Australian health agency, cases in the country has surged tremendously in the past two weeks. In Sydney and surrounding parts of New South Wales state, around 11,000 cases were detected in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, in Italy, the government has changed the isolation rules for those who had their booster shots. According to the new guidelines, those who came in close contact with the infected person will no longer be required to go under isolation if they had a booster dose, have been vaccinated or have recovered from the illness within the last 120 days.

However, they need to wear N95 face masks for at least 10 days or if they are found to show symptoms, then they should rush for the COVID tests, the health officials said during a press conference on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Spanish Ministry said that the Coronavirus cases in the country increased multiple folds after Christmas. A total of 59,32,626 people have now been infected by COVID-19 in Spain, while the 120 deaths from COVID-19 reported lifting the total number of fatalities to 89,139. Though the government has eased the isolation rules, the Spanish government passed a decree that requires people to wear facemasks outdoors from December 24.

Know more about the Omicron variant

The first case of a new COVID variant was detected in South Africa and has also been detected in travellers from Hong Kong and Botswana. It is worth mentioning that South Africa has reported nearly 200 cases of Coronavirus in the past two weeks ago. However, with the emergence of the newly detected variant, the cases in the country went up to 2,465. Notably, the difference of nearly 2,400 cases was reported within a gap of three days. The scientific community was concerned with the transmissibility of the new variant as it went from barely detected to spreading among the majority of the samples.

Image: ANI