Doctors given discretion to allow shorter home isolation period for Covid-19 patients with mild symptoms: MOH

SINGAPORE — Covid-19 recovery protocols will be further streamlined starting Thursday (Jan 6) in response to the rise in the cases caused by the Omicron variant, which is more transmissible but less severe. 

Under the new protocol, those who are infected with Covid-19 who have mild symptoms may undergo home recovery and resume normal activities after 72 hours, or three days, if they test negative — provided they are assessed by a doctor to be suitable for such a recovery programme.

Currently, those who test positive and have symptoms can resume normal activities only after 10 days of isolation if they are vaccinated, or 14 days if they are unvaccinated.  

The Ministry of Health (MOH), in announcing this in a statement on Wednesday, said that it would work with primary care doctors to enable them to support low-risk individuals with mild Covid-19 symptoms to recover safely in the community.

MOH in October last year had set out three protocols for three main scenarios that people may encounter.

• Protocol 1: For those feeling unwell and having tested positive for Covid-19 
• Protocol 2: For those feeling well and having tested positive for Covid-19
• Protocol 3: Found to be a close contact of an infected person

MOH noted that it had earlier shifted its approach to managing Omicron cases like other Covid-19 cases. This included handling Omicron cases using the three protocols and to allow for home recovery instead of isolating patients at dedicated facilities by default.

It said that it will continue to monitor the situation in the coming weeks and "make further adjustments to gradually allow more patients to safely recover under Protocol 2 after seeing a primary care doctor and to support their earlier return to normal activities". 

RECENT WAVE OF DELTA SUBSIDED

MOH added in its statement that the Covid-19 situation here "remains within control" and that over the past week, daily case numbers have been around 200 on average, with 16 patients now in intensive care units.

"These figures are significantly lower than when we experienced a peak in infection numbers a few months ago, indicating that the recent wave of Delta infections has subsided," it said. 

However, there is a growing number of confirmed Omicron cases even as the Delta wave subsides, it noted.

It has detected 1,281 confirmed Omicron cases, comprising 1,048 imported cases and 233 local cases, which makes up around 18 per cent of cases here in the last week.

"With higher transmissibility of the Omicron variant, we are likely to experience another wave of community infections soon," MOH said.