Health ministry studying isolation criteria for contacts of coronavirus patients

Health authorities are studying the possibility of modifying the isolation criteria for contacts of coronavirus patients in the face of an exponential increase in quarantined people. 

Speaking to Ser Catalunya, the secretary of public health, Joan Guix, said that there were several possibilities, such as choosing the highest risk profiles instead of quarantining everyone, but insisted that the matter was still being considered and nothing is finalised. 

He also said that a specific protocol on geriatric residences would be published this Friday, and had set "common sense" guidelines, such as that visitors or workers with symptoms do not enter.

In the cases of people in home isolation, which in Catalonia is already around 500 people, Guix acknowledged that "it is a logistical, family, and even work-related problem." 

"We are setting scenarios to see what levels of risk there may be, to see how we can solve them one way or another," said the Secretary of Public Health.

On the decision to suspend the Alimentaria food fair, Dr. Guix stated that the problem was not so much the carrying out of the event, but that workers had to start assembling the congress halls in a few days without the guarantee that the event would go ahead. 

In any case, he said he hopes that by the end of April the coronavirus situation will be calmer.