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In past two days, only 23 qualify for home isolation in Ghaziabad
Two days since Ghaziabad prepared itself to offer home isolation for asymptomatic patients, only 23 patients were found to be eligible for it. District officials
Two days since Ghaziabad prepared itself to offer home isolation for asymptomatic patients, only 23 patients were found to be eligible for it. District officials said that the patients were asked to submit an undertaking promising to follow home isolation guidelines.
With rising cases, the Uttar Pradesh government on July 20 had allowed asymptomatic infected people to isolate themselves at their home thereby reducing the strain on the health infrastructure.
The district set up nine rapid response teams at the Covid control room and got in touch with about 200 such people till now, apart from keeping in regular contact with all positive patients daily.
“So far 23 positive cases were found eligible for home isolation and 16 consented. It is too early to say how many patients will be eligible for home isolation, but we will be able to get an estimate within a week,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, district magistrate. “In the meantime our teams will get in touch with all positive patients to know whether they will opt for home isolation or not.”
The conditions for home isolation include the undertaking from the patient, a consulting doctor to declare the patient asymptomatic, round-the-clock availability of a caregiver for the patient, a minimum of two toilets at home and separate isolation room. Patients will also have to purchase medical kits equipped with pulse oximeter, thermometer, mask, gloves, among others.
In their revised guidelines issued on Tuesday night, the UP government said that asymptomatic patients in home isolation will be considered as recovered if they do not show any symptoms for 10 days.
“Those who were not willing for home isolation considered the potential risk to their family, while there were others who did not have the facilities as mandated by the guidelines. So, we are keeping track of all possibilities and also focussing in early treatment and early discharge of patients from our Covid facilities as per the revised discharge guidelines,” he added.
According to official estimates, the asymptomatic patients account for about 70% share in total cases in the district.
“As per the latest guidelines, the asymptomatic patient can be discharged from the 10th day of their sample. Earlier, it was on the 10th day from the date of admission to a Covid hospital. So, there was a gap of about 2-3 days which has now been reduced due to delay in receiving test reports. So, asymptomatic patients can be discharged faster,” said an officer from the health department who wished not be named. “Now with rapid antigen tests, the reports are received within an hour and we have made sure that patient is admitted maximum within 12 hours of his test/sample.”
Between June 21 and July 21, the district discharged about 2,351 patients. With the latest guidelines, 688 patients were discharged in just three days till July 24.
“With active systems in place now and control room working in integrated manner, we have been able to upload 86% of our contact tracing data of patients to our portal. With home isolation in place, we are also scaling up the monitoring of patients at home besides taking care of timely discharge of asymptomatic patients from our Covid facilities,” Pandey added.
