Maharashtra: Most New Covid-19 Patients to Be Put in Institutional Isolation
03-Jun-2021
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On Wednesday, officials said that Maharashtra government is planning placing most of new COVID-19 patients in institutional isolation instead of doing home quarantine.
According to Dr. Archana Patil, the director of Health Services in the state health department, the intention of this plan of action was to basically avoid the patients' family members catching the infection. She also said that due to this reason, the government requested all the district collectors to increase the amount of beds in the isolation centres. Dr. Patil did make it clear that this did not mean that active COVID-19 patients who are in home isolation currently, would have to shift to government facilities.
During the second wave of the pandemic which began in March, patients with mild symptoms could stay at home, but in many cases, this situation led to their family members getting the virus.
Dr. Patil said the pace of the vaccinations was slow because of the limited supply of doses. She said, "Today we received around 9 lakh vials of Covishield from the Serum Institute of India. This stock would be exhausted in the next couple of days.” Shortage of vaccines was also a factor which led the government to put stress on institutional quarantine, she said. They hope to slow the rate of the infection with institutional quarantining.