Australia will ease restrictions on people who have been in close contact with those infected with COVID-19 as the spread of the omicron variant drives a surge in cases.
People who share households with those who test positive for the virus will be permitted to end their isolation after quarantining for seven days and receiving a negative COVID-19 rapid test in five of Australia’s eight states and territories, Bloomberg reported.
Previously, close contacts were required in most Australian states to isolate for up to two weeks and receive a negative PCR test result, according to the outlet.
“With omicron, we cannot have hundreds of thousands of Australians, or more, taken out of circulation based on rules that were set for the delta variant,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, per Bloomberg. “What we’re dealing with is a different variant that has a high volume with lower severity illness.”
Data from Johns Hopkins University‘s Coronavirus Resource Center indicated that Australia has seen 147,965 cases in the last 28 days. The country has had 362,677 cases throughout the pandemic.
As omicron fuels COVID-19 case spikes around the world, the U.S. has also loosened some of its COVID-19-related policies.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed its guidance for asymptomatic COVID-19 cases this week, shortening the isolation period from 10 days to five days.
The CDC’s decision has been criticized by some in the medical community. However, Anthony Fauci, President Biden‘s chief medical adviser, has defended the change.
“The reason is that now that we have such an overwhelming volume of cases coming in, many of which are without symptoms, there’s the danger that this is going to have a really negative impact on our ability to really get society to function properly,” Fauci said in a Thursday interview on NewsNation’s “Morning in America.”
He added that the CDC “thought it out well,” though the new guidance was not “100 percent risk-free.”