Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Friday made five-day institutional-quarantine mandatory for every COVID-19 patient under home-quarantine in the national capital. Anil Baijal passed an order to cancel home quarantine for positive patients in Delhi. As per the order, patients who test positive will have to spend five days of mandatory isolation after which asymptomatic patients will be sent home to recover. Anil Baijal has directed the authorities to conduct physical surveillance of those in self-quarantine.
“Delhi is reviewed regularly in the Ministry of Home Affairs and it was observed that ‘Home Isolation’ without physical contact to monitor the patients may be a reason for increase in spread of increase in COVID-19 infections in Delhi,” said Anil Baijal in a letter to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and top officials of the Delhi government.
“Mandatory physical verification of each case under home isolation is to be carried out by the Surveillance teams of the District Surveillance officers under overall supervision of the District Magistrate,” ordered Anil Baijal, who heads the Delhi Disaster Management Authority, the top decision-making body during the pandemic in the national capital.
“Today’s order of the Central government stopping home isolation will discourage people from testing and further spread coronavirus as asymptomatic and mild symptom patients will resist testing and will not be quarantined,” it said.
According to the government, there are around 8,500 COVID-19 patients in home isolation in Delhi, who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms.
The Delhi government has been struggling with an acute shortage of hospital beds and facilities. Delhi has the third highest number of cases in the country has a large number of patients being home quarantined. Currently there are 27000 active cases in Delhi.
New guidelines for Delhi COVID-19 cases-
Patients with coronavirus-positive report cannot choose to quarantine at home. All patients must be admitted to institutional quarantine for five days.
Outsourced services of the government that was making telephonic contact with Home Quarantine patients discontinued with immediate effect.
Each Covid-19 positive patient under home isolation needs to undergo mandatory physical verification carried out by district surveillance teams under supervision of District Magistrate.