COVID-19 home isolation policy faulty, observes NITI Ayog committee

NEW DELHI: The much talked about Home Isolation (HI) policy of the Delhi government has not been as effective as it should have been, observed a committee headed by NITI Ayog member VK Paul. 

The report which is compiled by National Centre for Disease Control under VK Paul points towards a gap in system of proper selection to put a patient under home isolation.

It analyzed deaths in three major Centre-run hospitals which revealed that the number of patients in ‘brought dead’ category is upto 44.6 percent of the cumulative deaths in some cases. 

“Although dramatic course of illness is inevitable but to some extent it could be attributed to system gap in proper triaging/selection of patients to put under ‘HI’ and delay in accessing the critical care” said the report. 

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“Patient brought dead in the hospital comprise of 15 per cent in RML hospital, 6.5 per cent in Safdarjung Hospital and 44.6 per cent in Lady Hardinge (cumulative),” findings said.

The committee constituted by the Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal says, “Further as majority proportion of active cases in Delhi are the home isolation patients, the strict monitoring of movement restriction of all cases under Home isolation especially in densely populated area is challenging and may be one of reasons of spread of infection.” 

Naval Kishore Vikram, Professor, Medicine Department, AIIMS said, “However, if the families do not have separate washrooms then the patient should be taken to institutional quarantine centres, but if symptomatic then no compromises are to be done.

The chances of infecting others become minimal after 15 days or end of the second week of the positive person and that is why patients are kept at home isolation.” 

The committee has thrown light at relatively Delhi’s high fatality rate as compared to national average. The overall case fatality rate in Delhi is 1.9 per cent which is higher than the national average of 1.5 per cent. Another major loophole the committee highlighted is about contact tracing.

With unlocking of the city, committee recommends that contact tracing could be restricted to just immediate family. 

“With gradual opening up of offices and economic activities, the work places are becoming hot spots and eventually infection is reaching to the families. Hence, contact tracing strategy need to more rationalized,” says the committee. Delhi government didn’t respond to repeated queries regarding the findings.

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