Press Releases

For consistency purposes with the updated bibliographic data by international organizations and following the recommendation of the Scientific Advisory Committee, the Ministry of Health informs that the guidelines regarding the discharge of coronavirus cases without symptoms or with mild symptoms from self-isolation have been amended.

Specifically, according to the new guidelines, the following shall apply for the discharge from self-isolation:

• Asymptomatic individuals: Discharge from self-isolation 10 days after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2.
• Individuals with mild/moderate symptoms: Discharge from self-isolation 10 days after the onset of symptoms, provided that the patient has no fever for at least 3 days (without use of fever-combating medicine) and has improvement of all other symptoms

It is clarified that the self-isolation of positive cases lasts 10 days. Therefore, the discharge date of the positive case is the 11^th day from the date of the first positive laboratory result, or the date of the onset of symptoms, which is defined as day 0.

It is emphasized that in any case, citizens should contact their Personal Doctor, to ensure that the criteria are met. Citizens who are not registered with a Personal Doctor are discharged by the Ministry’s Epidemiological Monitoring Unit.

The new recommendations concern all those who fall under the above two groups of positive cases (asymptomatic or with mild/moderate symptoms), regardless of their vaccination history. The decision of discharge on the 10^th day applies retroactively and Personal Doctors have already been informed about the relevant revised instructions. For example, a virus positive person with no symptoms, who is currently on the 8^th day of his/her self-isolation can be discharged by his/her Personal Doctor 2 days after. Respectively, if a person is currently on the 11^th day of self-isolation, he/she can be discharged by his/her Personal Doctor today.

Finally, it is clarified that the instructions for close contacts remain unchanged, namely:

• Close contacts with a vaccination history are excluded from self-isolation, provided that they have completed their vaccination scheme with a two-dose vaccine or 14 days have elapsed since their vaccination with a single-dose vaccine.
• Close contacts without a history of vaccination must remain in mandatory self-isolation for 14 days from their last contact with the positive case regardless of the laboratory test result (contact day is defined as day 0).
• Close contacts without a vaccination history can be released on the 7^th day after their last contact with the positive case, provided that they will necessarily undergo, at their own expense, a PCR test on the 7^th day with a negative result.

(MPO)