Vaccinated people no longer have to go into quarantine

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CoV vaccination also brings relief in quarantine rules. Vaccinated persons are longer have to be quarantined. However, an FFP2 mask requirement also applies outdoors.

Normall, one has to spend 14 days in quarantine if you have had close contact with an infected person. You can save yourself with a “valid” vaccination, explains Ursula Karnthaler from the city’s health service (MA 15) to Radio Vienna: “That means a vaccination, where you can assume a protection: That is from the 22nd day after the initial vaccination.”

However, an FFP2 mask must be worn when doing so outside of private living quarters: “Of course, if I’m walking alone in the woods, I don’t need to put it on – but anywhere I might come into contact with other people, an FFP2 mask must be worn.” That also applies outdoors, Karnthaler said, such as on sidewalks.

Short quarantine in case of positive test
The “free testing” is voluntary – however, a test is obligatory after it becomes known that one is a contact person. There is no exception for vaccinated persons. A PCR test is recommended in Vienna. What happens if a test is positive? We know that vaccinated people are often only infected with the virus for a short time, explains Karnthaler. A second test is carried out 48 hours later to check whether the viral load is still rising. If the so-called Ct value is then already above 30, the quarantine is ended. This value is considered a guideline that someone is no longer infectious.

Relief also applies to those who have recovered
By the way, all quarantine facilities in Vienna also apply to convalescents, i.e. people who have already had a coronavirus infection – up to six months after the initial laboratory diagnosis. According to MA 15, these regulations have been in force in Vienna for several weeks. They are based on recommendations from the Ministry of Health.

However, not all federal states are likely to have implemented these recommendations yet. On the website of the province of Lower Austria, for example, it is explained that even if you are vaccinated, you still have to be quarantined, because: “There are not yet sufficient study results on whether or to what extent vaccination also influences the transmission of the infection. Therefore, all protective measures must be observed even by vaccinated persons.”

For Karnthaler, it’s a matter of weighing the pros and cons. “There is never zero percent risk, of course.” But she said he knows that recovered and vaccinated people have “a much, much lower risk” of getting sick and passing on the infection. In addition, even a negative CoV test is no guarantee that you won’t infect anyone in the next 48 or 72 hours, she said. But the protective measures would contribute to a much safer situation overall.