France allows some COVID-19-infected medics to keep working

LE PECQ, France (AP) — France is allowing health care workers who are infected with the coronavirus but have few or no symptoms to keep treating patients rather than self-isolate, an extraordinary stopgap measure aimed at easing staff shortages at hospitals and other facilities caused by an unprecedented explosion in cases.

The special exemption to France's quarantine rules being rolled out to hospitals, elderly care homes, doctors' offices and other essential health services testifies to the growing strain on the French medical system by the fast-spreading omicron variant.

It is a calculated risk, with the possibility that health care workers with COVID-19 could infect colleagues and patients being weighed against what the government says is a need to keep essential services running.

Outside the health sector, for those not covered by the special exemption, France's quarantine rules require at least five days of self-isolation for the fully vaccinated who test positive. For the unvaccinated, self-isolation is at least seven days.

Governments and industries have warned that isolation rules are creating staff shortages across a range of sectors as the omicron variant causes surges in infections in many countries. In some places, quarantines have been shortened, including France, to get workers back to their posts.

But in Europe, France appears to be alone in now also opening up the possibility for health care personnel to work while infected.

There are increasing signs that the variant causes less-severe disease. But the deluge of infections is still sending increasing numbers of people to hospitals, putting those institutions under pressure, especially when medical workers are absent, too.

French hospital authorities said the new flexibility from self-isolation would...