A serious discrepancy between the new DOH Guidelines on Isolation and the new CHO Guidelines on Isolation. An explanation.

This is a temporary page just to share the discrepancy, or omission, in the Circular Memorandum of the City Health Office of Davao City in relation to the DOH Guidelines with the staff of the City Health Office of Davao City. This Memorandum refers to the national implemented new DOH Guidelines of 14th January 2022 and made public 15th January 2022, which you can find online on the website of the DOH: https://doh.gov.ph/sites/default/files/health-update/dm2022-0013.pdf.

Beneath you can see a picture with on the left the DOH Department Memorandum N0.: 2022 – 0013 (of January 14, 2022) and on the right the City Health Office (CHO) Memorandum No.: 055s. 2022 (of 15 January 2022). The CHO Memorandum is, as it says at the top, a ‘Reiteration on the Quarantine and Isolation Guidelines in Davao City per DOH Memorandum 2022 – 0013‘. With this, the CHO of Davao city refers to the DOH Memorandum.

With the red arrows we point out to what the new DOH Guidelines says on people with mild symptoms, to which the CHO of Davao City refers to with it’s reiteration. A small mistake with quite a big effect has crept into there, as we can read, as the full text of the DOH Guidelines on Isolation as laid down states that this is concerning to:
“ALL INDIVIDUALS with symptoms and suspect, probable, and confirmed cases presenting with mild symptoms, INCLUDING individuals under priority groups A2 and A3 who are fully vaccinated, shall isolate for at least 7 days from onset of signs and symptoms“. So, all fully vaccinated individuals including the priority groups A2 and A3.

On counting days. When the Guidelines says to isolate “…7 days from the onset of symptoms” (for mild cases) you start counting from the onset of symptoms as day 1. As 7 days make… 7 days in total. So the 7th day will be one’s last day of isolation. The day afterwards (the 8th day) is the day one can go out of isolation (of course, “provided they don’t have fever for at least 24 hours without the use of any antipyretic medications, and shall have improvement of respiratory signs and symptoms”). There is no such day as “day 0”. If we have to count 7 days we have to count 7 days. Period.

The picture above with the summary on isolation periods for all case types is taken from the Facebook page of the Department of Health Davao Region and was posted on Friday evening, 14th of January 2022.