Five federal states have already lifted the corona isolation requirement – now North Rhine-Westphalia is following, at least in part. Sick people should be able to move freely again after five days. A free test is no longer mandatory, but is recommended.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the obligation to isolate in the event of a corona infection will automatically end after five days. A free test with a negative corona test is no longer mandatory, but is only recommended, the state government in Düsseldorf announced. The change in the state’s own test and quarantine regulation will come into force on Wednesday next week.
Five federal states have now completely abolished the obligation to isolate people infected with corona, citing the changed nature of the pandemic and the falling number of infections as the reason for this. These are Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Schleswig-Holstein and Rhineland-Palatinate. In their place, there is an obligation to wear a mask outside of your own home for people infected with corona.
According to its own statements, the government of the most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia does not want to go that far at the moment. “I still think it is necessary to isolate infected people at the present time,” said State Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann in Düsseldorf. Isolation can help prevent infection.
According to the new regulation in North Rhine-Westphalia, employees in medical facilities are only allowed to return to their workplace in the event of an infection after presenting a negative test result. Until then, they are still banned from working in appropriate facilities, regardless of the automatic end of the general obligation to isolate after five days.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gives the nationwide seven-day incidence at 177.9. The day before, the value of new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 183.2 (previous week: 203.4; previous month: 599.2).
However, this information only provides a very incomplete picture of the number of infections. Experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI – mainly because not all infected people have a PCR test done. Only positive PCR tests count in the statistics. In addition, late registrations and transmission problems can lead to the distortion of individual daily values.
