What if you are in contact? What if you test positive? Is the instruction the same for vaccinated and non-vaccinated? Sometimes difficult to navigate, especially since new rules have just been decreed.

Until now, any case-contact person was asked to self-confine for 10 days, even if they tested negative. Indeed, it is possible to be contagious before being positive for covid. And anyone who tested positive also had to isolate themselves for 10 days and prevent their contacts.

Read also: Health pass, instructions for use

Positive test: compulsory isolation

But the new law, validated by the Council of State and in the process of being adopted, changes the situation. Four situations are now possible:

• 1st situation: you test positive for covid and you have not been vaccinated, or not fully vaccinated

You must be in solitary confinement for a period of 10 days, in a defined place of accommodation. This recommended isolation now becomes a obligation subject to controls.

You will only be able to go out between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. and in an emergency. These outing hours will be adaptable in case of justification of family or personal constraints. Controls will be possible in the place concerned except at night from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m., and during the exit authorization period between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m.

Isolation may be completed earlier if the PCR test is negative. People who do not respect isolation will be liable to a fourth class fine, up to 1,500 euros. An appeal will nevertheless be possible before the liberty and detention judge, who will have to rule within 72 hours.

• 2nd situation: you test positive for covid and you are fully vaccinated (two doses of vaccine or one dose after a covid infection)

The instructions are the same as if you are not vaccinated. You must isolate yourself and this isolation is subject to checks, exactly as in the 1st situation.

Vaccinated people are no longer case-contact

• 3rd situation: you are unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated

You should self-isolate for at least seven days, even if there are no symptoms. You should be tested either immediately if you live with the sick person you are in contact with or seven days after the last contact with that person. This isolation is not subject to control.

• 4th situation: you are case-contact but fully vaccinated

You are not subject to isolation if your covid test is negative. You will only need to isolate yourself if you test positive.

This last situation is the only relaxation authorized for vaccinated persons. It is based on scientific data, which shows that anti-covid vaccination does indeed reduce the risk of contamination and transmission of the virus. Thus, an Israeli study carried out in real conditions, put online in pre-publication July 16, shows that within the same household, a person vaccinated and contaminated with covid has only a 4% risk of transmitting the virus to a second vaccinated person. However, this figure climbs to 59% between two unvaccinated people from the same household.