The Ministry of Health and Wellness in Barbados is advising the public that there is no more routine quarantine for persons who are potentially exposed to COVID-19.
Since the start of the pandemic, quarantine, along with other related measures, such as case identification, contact tracing and isolation, has long been a standard procedure to assist in the control of COVID.
However, since the inception of Omicron, the practice of routine quarantine has not been utilised nor advised.
Barbados’ Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Anton Best, has explained that due to the highly infectious nature of the Omicron variant, plus its reduced virulence (or disease severity) routine quarantine would not have been manageable by the public health officials at the polyclinics.
He further stated that it would also have been too disruptive.
