The current Covid-19 home isolation rules are overkill and need to be cut to three days for vaccinated people without symptoms, a leading doctor says.
File photo. Photo: AFP
Council of Medical Colleges chair John Bonning has joined calls to reduce the isolation period from the current 10 days for household contacts.
Combined with high vaccination rates, Omicron was causing much less serious illness among vaccinated people and that meant some changes could be made, he said.
"I'm still in favour of fairly widespread testing but [not] just locking people up in their homes for 10 days not able to go to work - this will be nurses, teachers, people who work in the food industry," he said.
Dr Bonning was clear that many public health measures needed to stay, and any changes should be step by step.
Vaccine mandates were still crucial to protect people, particularly vulnerable populations, and mask-wearing must stay, he said.
But there was some sensible middle ground that could help to keep the country moving and prevent workplaces having a quarter of their staff at home isolating, Dr Bonning said.
"I don't want it to be a wild swing across to 'right let's just abandon everything and go about life completely as normal tomorrow' but it's about being agile," he said.
The response to this point had been the right one, he said.
"We've done a wonderful job to get to this point with saving lives, protecting our communities, to get so highly vaccinated, and the lowest death rate in the world virtually."
He agreed with GP leader Bryan Betty who was advocating for a change in mindset about Covid-19 because of the Omicron variant because for most people it would be a mild to moderate illness.
He favoured not reporting daily case numbers anymore, instead reporting hospitalisation rates.
"It's about reducing some of the anxiety that's built up over the last few years," he said.
"I'm not talking about people going out there and intentionally getting it either, but it's just nowhere near as bad as Delta and it's part of our path out of the pandemic," he said.