14-day quarantine for common man, one-day for NMC staff

Nagpur: Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) seems to be following two sets of guidelines as far as institutional quarantine is concerned.
The civic body has been proactively picking up close contacts of Covid positive patients from across the city and compulsorily placing them in institutional quarantine for 14 days. But, it has not followed this norm in case of 45 of its own employees who came in contact with three other positive workers between May 29 and June 2 and but have tested negative.
Only two top officers out of the 45 went into institutional quarantine for a day last week at Ravi Bhavan. All of them are reportedly in home quarantine, a facility most of those testing negative had been demanding in the last two months.
Addtitional municipal commissioner Ram Joshi said the first lot of 10 employees was in institutional quarantine but he was not sure about the 35. “It was for one day. They were not in direct contact. We just had to confirm their health status as they are working with us. Pending test results, we didn’t want them to go home so we asked them to halt at one of the quarantine centres. They are not in high risk group. They were tested assuming they may have come in contact with a positive person. The employees had been visiting government hospitals, they are meeting us, or sometimes we meet them. Several of us have been tested and this testing was on same lines,” he said..
He added that those at high risk have been quarantined. “They have still been advised home quarantine and they are managing work from home,” he said.
After the state government had notified the 10-day discharge policy for Covid patients, then too the NMC had asserted that it would continue with 14-day institutional quarantine for close contacts of patients.
In contrast, 14 family members of a medical officer and paramedical worker, who tested positive last week, are in institutional quarantine. Government Medical College and Hospital’s chief medical officer too had followed the same quarantine norm after he touched the body of Parvati Nagar Covid victim last month.
On June 1, a 21-year-old sanitary worker had tested positive. Consequently, 37 doctors and staff of civic body from Satranjipura zone were tested. Two tested positive while 35 were advised home quarantine on Tuesday.
Before this, 10 officials, including deputy municipal commissioner and veterinary officer and eight more staffers from the NMC Civil Lines head office had to be tested after an attendant there tested positive on May 29. TOI has learnt that while top officials are home quarantined, doctors and other employees are allegedly reporting for work.
During the last two month, NMC had faced flak from people who had already spent 14-day home quarantine or spent more than 14 days at institutional quarantine centres despite testing negative. Most complaints came from Mominpura and Satranjipura beside the Delhi returned citizens.