Documents detail quarantine, roles of neighborhoods and hospitals.
On Thursday, CUI JUN Health authorities issued two guidelines in tandem to help COVID 19 patients with mild symptoms recover at home and to properly monitor their health with test kits.
The documents were rolling out a day after China announced more changes to COVID 19 control policies, such as allowing positive cases to isolate at home, stopping mass testing campaigns and removing limits for buying cold and fever medications.
The guidelines allowed the majority of new COVID 19 patients to stay at home, except for those with serious heart, lung, and brain illnesses that necessitate hospitalization, as a result of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism, the country's COVID 19 control task force.
To reduce cross-infections, the rules recommend separate rooms for homebound patients, who are encouraged to take recommended drugs based on symptoms, and report their body temperature regularly to neighborhood authorities. Among the necessities for them are tissues, surgical masks, single-use gloves, sanitizers and a trash can with a lid.
After recovery, people need to test negative using an antigen test kit before contacting the neighborhood authorities for formal nucleic acid tests. The isolation wraps up after the test results return negative for two consecutive days.
Home isolation can be risky for vulnerable groups.
In order to address the problem, neighborhood officials and grassroots clinics were tasked with keeping an eye on seniors who live alone, pregnant women or people who need blood dialysis, and advising them on medications and test kits.
The rules suggest that COVID 19 patients should not venture out of their homes.
Workers dismantle an area for nucleic acid testing at the Shanghai Railway Station on Thursday. CHEN MENGZE However, those with worsening breathing difficulties, persistent fever or other symptoms are allowed to leave isolation for treatment, preferably by calling for an ambulance or driving to hospitals. Public transportation should be avoided.
The neighborhood authorities are obligated to help those with worsening conditions be hospitalized. The rules say hospitals can't use any excuse to refuse admitting patients.
The rules urged local governments to step up the production of test kits and supervision over their dealers, and asked construction sites, colleges and large corporations to prepare test kits in advance in case of cluster infections.
Local health departments will develop software so that results of home-executed tests can be reported.
Wang Guiqiang, an epidemiologist at Peking University First Hospital, told a news conference on Thursday that separate rooms are essential for home isolation to prevent the disease from spreading further.
He said that home isolation is not recommended if there is only one room, and patients have to live together with the bedridden elderly with basic diseases.
The guidelines are part of the precautions taken by health authorities against a potential surge in COVID 19 patients after many pandemic restrictions, such as nucleic acid test proofs for travel and entering public venues.
As many as mild and asymptomatic cases at home can help save hospital beds for critically ill patients, usually unvaccinated older adults, and keep other patients' medical plans from being disrupted by Omicron outbreaks at hospitals, experts and officials suggested.