RISHARD KHAN

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Health has changed the pro­to­cols gov­ern­ing the iso­la­tion of COVID-19-pos­i­tive peo­ple to now in­clude an op­tion for re­lease up­on re­ceipt of a neg­a­tive test re­sult.

The mea­sure came in­to ef­fect on De­cem­ber 5, but was not an­nounced through an of­fi­cial state­ment. How­ev­er, in­for­ma­tion on the re­vised mea­sure was up­loaded to the min­istry's web­site.

The amend­ment ap­plies to both asymp­to­matic cas­es and symp­to­matic cas­es.

Asymp­to­matic Cas­es:

Ac­cord­ing to the no­tice, asymp­to­matic pa­tients can come out of iso­la­tion with a neg­a­tive anti­gen or PCR test—from a lab­o­ra­to­ry or physi­cian, that is, not a home test—at least five days af­ter the orig­i­nal PCR pos­i­tive test.

With­out the ex­it test­ing, they will be able to ex­it iso­la­tion 10 days from the date on which the na­sopha­ryn­geal swab was tak­en which led to a COVID-19 pos­i­tive test.

Symp­to­matic Cas­es:

With ex­it test­ing, a per­son can come out of iso­la­tion with a neg­a­tive anti­gen or PCR COVID-19 test—from a lab­o­ra­to­ry or physi­cian, that is, not a home test—at least five days af­ter the on­set of symp­toms or a pos­i­tive test.

With­out the ex­it test, the pa­tient will be dis­charged a min­i­mum of 10 days af­ter they first de­vel­oped symp­toms.