Mumbai: People in home quarantine up by over 400% in a month

MUMBAI: The number of people in home quarantine across the city has galloped exponentially over the last month. Earlier this week, on May 13, at least 2.34 lakh in the city were in home quarantine as against 43,249 about a month earlier (on April 15). That’s a rise of 441%.
Data put out by the civic body, BMC, shows how the number of Mumbaikars placed in home quarantine has surged northwards since the outbreak of Covid-19. On April 6, this figure stood at 10,968 and ballooned to 53, 118 on April 17 — a rise of 384% within 11 days.
Civic officials said that when a person tests positive for Covid, there is the need to ask the patient’s high-risk contacts to quarantine themselves immediately and get them tested if they exhibit symptoms. “Highrisk contacts who show symptoms are shifted to Covid care centres as required,” said a BMC official. “Also, those living in the patient’s building are not allowed to move out for 14 days at least and they too are checked for symptoms.”
Of the most recent number (2.34 lakh) of those in home quarantine, 12,636 have been shifted to institutional quarantine facilities. Overall, 95,154 have completed their 14-day quarantine so far.
The locality where a positive patient or his/her highrisk contacts live is marked as a ‘containment zone’. The city currently has 661 containment zones as against 2,600 containment zones last week. Also, it has 1,110 sealed buildings which are part of a containment zone.