The Kerala government is yet to publish a uniform guideline on quarantine and isolation of people for COVID-19 treatment.

As per the addendum to revised guidelines for testing, quarantine, hospital admission and discharge published by the COVID-19 Virus Outbreak Control and Prevention State Cell on March 31, 28-day isolation has been mandated only for laboratory confirmed patients, high-risk contacts and untested symptomatic people.

High-risk contact

A high-risk contact is defined as those with a travel history to a locality where COVID-19 community spread is suspected or clustering of COVID-19 cases is detected in the 14 days. However, low-risk contacts, people who had been to a country or area with reports of local transmission of the infection, have been asked to be in isolation only for 14 days.

Those who have had a primary contact or a symptomatic secondary contact with a low-risk contact also need to spend two weeks in isolation. Another section in this category is people with symptoms who had visited a country or area without a local transmission but COVID-19 cases in the past 14 days.

Sources in the Health Department said that the Union Health Ministry is yet to confirm a community spread in the country. Only around 20 countries across the globe have been listed with reports of local transmission in a set of guidelines published by the State Health Department.

Staff at the ground level here are yet to be clarified about “clustering of COVID-19 cases” though they are aware of many districts being declared as hotspots.

Low-risk category

An official, who wished not to be quoted, pointed out that there had been instances of asymptomatic people from the low-risk category testing positive for the virus even after their 14-day incubation period.

“People from the low-risk category can complete the isolation period and show no symptoms though they may have been infected. Some SARS-CoV-2 positive cases in Malappuram recently tested positive for the virus days after the incubation period. What if they had interacted with others thinking that they don’t have any problem?” he said.

The official suggested it was better to go for a uniform 28-day isolation for both high-risk and low-risk categories to avoid asymptomatic people transmitting the infection to others. Though oral instructions on 28-day isolation period have been given, they haven’t been officially published, the sources added.