The district administration has stepped up the monitoring of the home quarantined persons and have pushed for village quarantines, roping in the local village panchayats.
The administration has formed committees at panchayat-level comprising of staff from health, rural development and revenue departments. It includes local SHGs, teachers, village health nurses, health inspector, panchayat secretary, and Village Administrative Officer.
The district has a total of 375 persons, who were asymptomatic travellers returned from abroad and neighbouring States, placed in home quarantine. According to Deputy Director of Health Gemini, none of the travellers had reported symptoms of severe acute respiratory illness, or COVID-like symptoms.
Only one labourer from Kerala had reported persistent cold before COVID outbreak and his sample was sent for testing to Salem medical college hospital. It returned negative. “We are screening every traveller for respiratory symptoms or other symptoms. The returnees are asymptomatic travellers, but are in quarantine,” the DD said.
Homes with international travellers are indicated with green stickers, while those with travellers from other States including Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka and Gujarat with red stickers, and the homes of their neighbours of those they had come in contact with are pasted with yellow stickers.
Similarly, village quarantines have also been issued. Local panchayats have been asked to seal their village boundaries to prevent movement. “Some villages with 100% migrant workforce are directed to village quarantine, while those villages with residents without any kind of travel history are safe and advised to quarantine to protect their village,” Mr. Gemini said.
