The Central government has instructed the Delhi government to make five-day institutional quarantine compulsory for all people testing positive for COVID-19.
Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal passed an order on Friday putting an end to the Delhi government’s home quarantine strategy.
#Delhi LG Anil Baijal passes order stopping home quarantine; 5-days institutional #quarantine made mandatory for all #COVID19 patients in Delhi pic.twitter.com/4EpeBDc9v8
— NewsMobile (@NewsMobileIndia) June 19, 2020
Meanwhile, the Delhi government issued a statement saying that the home isolation program has been one of its most successful initiatives in the battle against Covid-19.
“We have treated thousands of mild and asymptomatic cases at home so far through daily monitoring and counselling. Home isolation protocol is being carried out strictly as per ICMR guidelines of the Central Government,” the statement said.
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It further said that 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.
“Delhi has already seen an escalating number of cases and has to prepare for patients from the entire region. In addition to the 80,000 beds being planned for serious patients in July, we will have to add thousands of quarantine rooms,” it said.
“ICMR guidelines are still applicable to the rest of India, then why are there different parameters for Delhi? There is already a serious shortage of doctors and nurses to treat serious patients, where would medical manpower come for taking care of these quarantine centres?” it asked.
The Delhi government said the Centre should reconsider its decision which will harm Delhi.
“Entire manpower of Delhi government is already stretched. Now, large quarantine centres would need to be made to house thousands of asymptomatic people. Thousands of patients are being treated at home at the moment. After this order, we would immediately need thousands of beds in quarantine centres,” it said.