Rules on quarantine and isolation of infected and contact persons
The NRW Coronavirus Testing and Quarantine Regulations (CoronaTestQuarantäneVO), effective since 31 March 2022, contain details on quarantine and isolation measures for infected and contact persons. The most important of these are summarised below.
As defined in § 30 (1) sentence 2 InfSchG, there are two forms of separation:
- isolation = physical separation of infected or presumably contagious persons
- quarantine = physical separation of contact persons
- Upon receiving a positive coronavirus self-test result, individuals must immediately verify the result with a control test at a testing centre:
- PCR test, or at least a
- coronavirus rapid test.
- Presumably infected individuals must isolate until they receive a negative test result. Furthermore, they must avoid direct contact with others and strictly comply with all hygiene and infection protection measures.
- The obligation to physically separate (isolate) also applies to those who take a PCR test after developing flu-like symptoms or after receiving a positive coronavirus rapid test result.
- Upon receiving a positive PCR test result, the infected individual must immediately isolate. Notification from the authorities with orders to isolate is not necessary. Similarly, the period of isolation concludes without special notification from the authorities, but rather ends in accordance with the rules put forth in CoronaTestQuarantäneVO.
- Isolation normally ends ten days after receiving the first positive PCR test, or ten days after symptoms first appeared.
- The isolation period may be terminated early if the individual can verify with a negative PCR test or a negative rapid corona test that he/she is no longer infectious. The test can be administered no earlier than the seventh day of isolation. The individual must then present the test result to his/her employer, keep the result for at least one month and present it to the responsible authorities upon request.
- Positively tested individuals are required to immediately notify all persons with whom they have had close personal contact in the two days prior to taking the test and receiving the test result (see the RKI definition of 1st-degree contact persons).
- You must also inform your employer of your infection and subsequent isolation (as a rule, the HR department).
- Please notify us of any periods of quarantine or coronavirus infection by email (corona.personal@uni-muenster.de). Even if you are working exclusively from a home office, please send word via email nonetheless.
- If after ten days, you receive another positive PCR test, your period of isolation is prolonged accordingly. Should you continue to experience symptoms of illness, you must take another coronavirus test after ten days.
- Those who have been informed of having had contact with a positively tested person should enter quarantine for 10 days and work from home, if possible, even without notification from the authorities with orders to quarantine.
- Those who are not obliged to quarantine include:
- persons who have had a booster shot, i.e. persons who have received a total of three vaccination doses (including combinations with the Janssen vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson)
- convalesced, vaccinated persons who have had a verified coronavirus infection and since received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine
- persons who have received two vaccinations, whose second dose was administered more than 14 but fewer than 90 days earlier
- convalesced persons, whose PCR test confirming their infection was issued more than 28 but fewer than 90 days earlier.
Should symptoms appear within the first ten days of contact with a positively tested person, these individuals are obliged to promptly isolate and get tested.
- The instructions to quarantine for contact persons are subject to enforcement by the local police department in coordination with the responsible health office.
- If your Corona-Warn-App displays a red tile, please read the following information.