Covid-19: Peak of viral shedding is later with omicron variant, Japanese data suggest

[Javaman]

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o89

Patients with the omicron variant of covid-19 shed virus for longer after symptoms emerge, show data from Japan, potentially jeopardising hopes that the period of isolation for people testing positive could be shortened.

Preliminary data from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases—which conducts disease surveillance in Japan—suggest that the amount of viral RNA is highest three to six days after diagnosis or symptom onset.1

The isolation period for people testing positive for covid-19 was recently cut from 10 days to seven in England if two lateral flow tests returned negative results on days six and seven. Similar cuts to isolation have followed in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Staff absences because of isolation have caused severe workforce shortages for critical services, including the NHS, schools, and transport, leading to calls for the UK to follow the US and cut the isolation period to five days.

One of the proponents of shortening isolation, Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said that the latest Japanese data “muddy the waters.”

“I’m still working my way through the evidence for and against given that the Japanese study has now shifted the balance,” he said.

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