In recent days, health authorities have established a new surveillance and control strategy against covid-19 after the acute phase of the pandemic in Spain which implies that:
- For the general population, the compulsory isolation of both positive cases and those suspected of being positive due to mild symptoms compatible with the infection has been eliminated.
- The suppression of quarantines are maintained in case of having had close contact with a positive case.
- In case of presenting symptoms, it is no longer mandatory to perform confirmatory tests (self-diagnostic test or PDIA[1]) or to notify the channels provided by the autonomous communities. Diagnostic tests are restricted to:
o Persons who have any vulnerability[2] criteria.
o People related to vulnerable areas (linked to health centers, social-health centers, day-care centers, prisons, etc.).
o Cases with severe symptoms requiring hospital admission.
o Persons who have been in the last 14 days in a region where a variant of interest or concern is circulating.
This new strategy of the Spanish health authorities implies accepting a certain level of SARS-CoV-2 transmission as long as a sufficiently high level of general vaccination has been achieved to minimize the severity of infections that may occur. For this reason, this new strategy makes it necessary to modify the case management established by ROVI so that, as of next Monday, March 28:
- Employees will no longer report SARS-CoV2 infections or suspected SARS-CoV2 infections to ROVI.
- The notificacionescovid19@rovi.es mailbox will be disabled.
- Persons with symptoms consistent with covid-19 infection should contact their health center and follow their physician’s instructions. In case of sick leave, it will be processed through the usual channels through HR and, as in the case of common illness, they shall no communicate the origin of the illness causing the sick leave.
In addition, we will maintain until further notice the current 50% attendance rate for office personnel, as well as the mandatory use of masks at the workstation and the minimum separation of 1.5 meters between workstations.
As up to now, these measures may be revised if the indications of the health authorities are modified.
Thank you and best regards,
[1]Diagnostic Test for Active SARS-CoV-2 Infection (PCR or rapid test for detection of SARS-CoV-2 antigen, both in nasopharyngeal exudate).
[2] Vulnerability criteria are considered:
– Persons aged 60 years or older.
– Immunosuppressed persons due to intrinsic or extrinsic causes (hematopoietic progenitor transplant recipients or CAR-T, within two years after transplantation/treatment, on immunosuppressive treatment or who have graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), regardless of time since transplantation; solid organ transplant recipients (less than two years or on immunosuppressive treatment for rejection events); primary immunodeficiencies: combined and B-cell in which absence of vaccine response has been demonstrated; persons who have received in the previous three months (six months in case of rituximab) anti CD20 drugs or belimumab; Down’s syndrome aged over 40 years.
– Pregnant women.