A five-day institutional quarantine is now mandatory for COVID-19 patients in the Capital, Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal ordered here on Friday.
Such cases, after institutional quarantine, will be sent back to home isolation except in cases where symptoms require further hospitalisation, according to the order issued by Mr. Baijal in his capacity as chairperson of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority.
‘Reconsider decision’
With 77.8% of the active cases till June 11 in the city recuperating in home isolation, the Delhi government called the decision “arbitrary” and asked for it to be reconsidered. “Today’s order of the Central government stopping home isolation will discourage people from testing and further spread corona as asymptomatic and mild symptom patients will resist testing and will not be quarantined,” the Aam Aadmi Party government said in a statement.
The statement said strict isolation protocol following Indian Council of Medical Research guidelines and daily monitoring and counselling has resulted in thousands of mild and asymptomatic cases recovering at home.
Sources in the Delhi government said the L-G’s directive would strain the city’s already stretched medical infrastructure, with the need to house “thousands of asymptomatic people” necessitating “thousands of beds” in quarantine centres.
Mr. Baijal cited a Ministry of Home Affairs observation that home isolation may be a reason for increasing spread of infections in Delhi to issue the new order. “Mandatory physical verification of each case is to be carried out by the surveillance teams under supervision of the District Magistrate,” the order stated.
