SHARE
COPY LINK

QUARANTINE

France set to toughen isolation measures for Covid contact cases

The French government has proposed a strict 10-day isolation period with police checks for people who come into contact with someone who has Covid-19, but vaccinated people can be released from quarantine early.

France set to toughen isolation measures for Covid contact cases
Contact cases could soon be subjected to police visits. Photo: PHILIPPE DESMAZES / AFP.

As part of the bill being debated in parliament this week concerning the extension of France’s health pass, the government wants to toughen measures for “contact cases” to isolate.

Currently if you have had contact with a person testing positive for Covid, you must take a test and self-isolate, but there are no police checks.

If you test positive, you must spent 10 days in isolation. If the test is negative, you must self-isolate for seven days and take another test. If the second test is negative, you can stop; if it’s positive, you must remain in isolation for another ten days.

You may be contacted by the Assurance Maladie or via the TousAntiCovid app to inform you that you have been in contact with somebody who has Covid.

Stricter enforcement

The rules are already more strict for travellers arriving from “red list” countries where the virus is spreading quickly. They must quarantine for 10 days in a place of their choosing, subject to police checks, and are only authorised to leave between 10am and 12pm or in emergencies.

READ ALSO Brits in France left furious over UK travel rules for tourists

Now the government wants to apply this measure to people living in France, according to reports in the French media. Checks could take place between 8am and 10am, and from 12pm to 11pm, with fines of up to €1,500 for breaking the rules.

Readers of The Local who have travelled to France from red zone countries reported that police checks at home do often take place.

But Patrice Ribeiro, general secretary of the Synergie-Officiers police union told Le Parisien it would be “physically impossible” to check on thousands of contact cases if the measure is implemented on a domestic basis.

Exemptions for vaccinated people

Fully vaccinated people will still be considered contact cases and required to quarantine, unless their initial Covid test is negative, according to Le Parisien. Vaccinated people who test positive will have to obey the 10-day quarantine.

Health minister Olivier Véran told RTL on Tuesday that “the rules could change” regarding isolation.

“What could be taken into account is that, when you are completely vaccinated – but I am waiting for the opinion of scientists I’ve called upon to know whether the Delta variant changes things – you would no longer be considered a contact when you have been in contact with a sick person,” he said.

He added that this would not apply to people living under the same roof, where the risk of infection is greater.

On June 15th, the Haut Conseil de la santé publique advistory body recommended dropping testing and quarantine measures for fully vaccinated people who have been in contact with somebody with Covid who does not live in the same household, because “the risk is very small”.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

COVID-19 RULES

End of the pandemic? What the expiry of Sweden’s Covid laws really means

With the expiry of Sweden's two temporary Covid-19 laws, the downgrading of the virus's threat classification, and the end of the last travel restrictions, April, officially at least, marks the end of the pandemic. We explain what it means.

End of the pandemic? What the expiry of Sweden's Covid laws really means

What are the two laws which expire on April 1st? 

Sweden’s parliament voted last week to let the two temporary laws put in place to battle the Covid-19 pandemic expire on April 1st.

The first law is the so-called Covid-19 law, or “the law on special restrictions to limit the spread of the Covid-19 illness”, which was used during the pandemic to temporarily empower the authorities to limit the number of visitors to shops, gyms, and sports facilities. It also gave the government power to limit the number of people who could gather in public places like parks and beaches. 

The second law was the “law on temporary restrictions at serving places”. This gave the authorities, among other things, the power to limit opening times, and force bars and restaurants to only serve seated customers.  

What impact will their expiry have? 

The immediate impact on life in Sweden will be close to zero, as the restrictions imposed on the back of these two laws were lifted months ago. But it does means that if the government does end up wanting to bring back these infection control measures, it will have to pass new versions of the laws before doing so. 

How is the classification of Covid-19 changing? 

The government decided at the start of February that it would stop classifying Covid-19 both as a “critical threat to society” and “a disease that’s dangerous to the public” on April 1st.

These classifications empowered the government under the infectious diseases law that existed in Sweden before the pandemic to impose health checks on inbound passengers, place people in quarantine, and ban people from entering certain areas, among other measures. 

What impact will this change have? 

Now Covid-19 is no longer classified as “a disease that’s dangerous to the public”, or an allmänfarlig sjukdom, people who suspect they have caught the virus, are no longer expected to visit a doctor or get tested, and they cannot be ordered to get tested by a court on the recommendation of an infectious diseases doctor. People with the virus can also no longer be required to aid with contact tracing or to go into quarantine. 

Now Covid-19 is no longer classified as “a critical threat to society”, or samhällsfarlig, the government can no longer order health checks at border posts, quarantine, or ban people from certain areas. 

The end of Sweden’s last remaining Covid-19 travel restrictions

Sweden’s last remaining travel restriction, the entry ban for non-EU arrivals, expired on March 31st.  This means that from April 1st, Sweden’s travel rules return to how they were before the Covid-19 pandemic began. 

No one will be required to show a vaccination or test certificate to enter the country, and no one will be barred from entering the country because their home country or departure country is not deemed to have a sufficiently good vaccination program or infection control measures. 

Does that mean the pandemic is over? 

Not as such. Infection rates are actually rising across Europe on the back of yet another version of the omicron variant. 

“There is still a pandemic going on and we all need to make sure that we live with it in a balanced way,” the Public Health Agency’s director-general, Karin Tegmark Wisell, told SVT

Her colleague Sara Byfors told TT that this included following the “fundamental recommendation to stay home if you are sick, so you don’t spread Covid-19 or any other diseases”. 

SHOW COMMENTS