German Virologist: Cut COVID Quarantines to 5 Days

From News Max.com (Sept. 2):

A leading German virologist who helped identify the SARS virus in 2003 is claiming that five days is long enough to quarantine after suspected exposure to the novel coronavirus.

Christian Drosten, the head of virology at Berlin's Charité hospital and a member of the European Commission’s advisory panel on coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), said on his “Coronavirus Update” podcast that the 14-day quarantine is nearly three times long as necessary according to research.

"There's already, let's say, a steep thesis, that after five days we say the infectious period is actually over," Drosten said on his podcast distributed by German public broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR).

"What can you do in reality so that you don't have a de facto lockdown? It's no use having all kinds of school classes, all kinds of workplaces under weeks of quarantine."

Drosten also said that the quarantine period should not be “wasted” by testing those suspected of exposure. He recommended testing only after the five-day quarantine had elapsed to determine if they were infected and still infectious.

And he dismissed the likelihood of re-infection from the SARS-CoV-2 virus and cast doubt on the effectiveness of face masks. [read more]