South Africans without symptoms of COVID-19 will no longer be required to isolate or test if they have come into contact with a positive case, the government declared on Friday, citing the virus’s evolution as justification for a change away from containment to mitigation.
After being one of the first countries to uncover the highly transmissible Omicron variety, the country has led the continent in terms of COVID-19 cases and deaths, as well as immunizations. Its experience has been widely studied around the world.
The health ministry said that asymptomatic individuals who had been in contact with a case of COVID-19 no longer had to isolate but should monitor for symptoms for 5-7 days and avoid attending large gatherings.
Only those people who developed symptoms needed to get tested, the statement continued, adding that those with mild symptoms should isolate for eight days and severe cases for 10 days.
All quarantine in facilities outside the home would be stopped, it continued, while contact tracing efforts would also be scrapped aside from in specific scenarios such as cluster outbreaks.