Amid a rise in cases of Covid-19 in Ranchi, many patients have started flouting the mandatory institutional quarantine norm, officials said on Wednesday, expressing concern over a possible spike in cases if Covid patients continue to dodge institutional quarantine and end up transmitting the viral infection to their family members and friends.
In July, the Health Department had done away with the option of home isolation for Covid patients and made institutional quarantine mandatory even for asymptomatic patients. While the cases dropped significantly in early August, the trajectory of Covid cases has seen an upward trend in the past one week. However, a negligible percentage of patients have been admitted to dedicated Covid care centres in Ranchi, officials said.
According to latest data with the health department, there were 103 Covid patients in Ranchi on Wednesday and hardly two of them were undergoing treatment at Sadar Hospital. Also, the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) had zero bed occupancy in its Covid ward on Tuesday, doctors said.
“We do not have any Covid patient admitted in our hospital today. I would see it as a positive sign that patients are not developing severe symptoms, but we cannot ignore the fact that some patients could be avoiding hospitalization despite having symptoms of the disease,” said the coordinator of Covid-19 task force at RIMS, Dr. Prabhat Kumar.
Strict adherence to the mandate of institutional quarantine was needed in order to avoid a rise in cases of infection, said Dr. Kumar, adding that the Government should not allow home quarantine for Covid patients even if the number of cases come down to a single-digit figure.
Meanwhile, in a bid to ensure strict adherence to the institutional quarantine norm, the Ranchi district administration has directed all incident commanders to make sure that Covid patients are not allowed to stay at home irrespective of the severity of their symptoms.
“All the area commanders have been directed to make sure that Covid patients in their areas are sent to institutional quarantine irrespective of whether they are symptomatic or not. We cannot afford to be complacent at this stage,” said Ranchi deputy commissioner Chhavi Ranjan.
As per government data, there were 217 active cases of Covid-19 in Jharkhand by Wednesday morning and about 40 per cent of the patients were symptomatic. Almost half of the active cases in Jharkhand were from Ranchi, the district which has reported the highest number of Covid cases and fatalities in the state so far.
The Ranchi district administration is also planning to reopen the quarantine centre at the Mega Sports Complex in Hotwar in order to accommodate Covid patients in case of a sudden spike in Covid cases, officials said.