Institutional quarantine mandatory in red districts: Maharashtra govt

Considering the fact that 18 districts of the state continue to record a high number of Covid19 cases the government has made institutional quarantine mandatory to control the transmission of the virus Henceforth home isolation will not be allowed The suspected as well as confirmed cases will be shifted to Covid19 Care Centres CCCs for treatment and more of CCCs will be set up in towns and villages to accommodate patientsAntigen tests being conducted at the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus on Tuesday PicSayyed Sameer AbediEven after almost a twomonth lockdown 18 out of the 36 districts including neighbouring Thane and Raigad havenrsquot seen much reduction in the caseload positivity and death rates and increase in the recovery rate The authorities found that people in home isolation violated Covid19 appropriate behaviour thus risking others Another reason for the increased transmission is smallsized houses which do not provide the scope of complete isolation As a result entire families have been infectedHealth minister Rajesh Tope who attended a meeting of district officials told the media on Tuesday that making institutional isolation mandatory was muchrequired ldquoWe reviewed the situation in districts where the performance is not at par with the statersquos average recovery rate 93 per cent positivity rate 12 per cent and death rate 85 per cent These districts will create more CCCs especially in villages The gram panchayats have been allowed to use 25 per cent of the Finance Commissionrsquos grant for creating 2530 bed isolation facilitiesrdquo he saidLargely unaffected in the first wave rural parts of the state was greatly impacted in the second one The lsquored districtsrsquo Satara Ratnagiri Sindhudurg Usmanabad Beed Raigad Pune Hingoli Akola Amravati Kolhapur Thane Sangli Gadchiroli Wardha Nashik Ahmednagar and Latur have been asked to follow the lsquoonly institutional isolationrsquo model Of these Ahmednagar has been followingthe modelSources said protecting rural Maharashtra against Covid19 was necessary ahead of the Kharip season for which a large labour force is required The first wave allowed farmers to work on fields during the last season which helped the state boost its agricultural growth But this monsoon is expected to be different The hinterland is already fighting the second wave and a third one is expected to hit the state during the peak farming season ldquoRains will start soon and so will the sowing of crops Premonsoon preparations have been hit in many villages because of the virus The farmers and labourers must be fit to work or else we will be facing hardships in the agriculture sector as wellrdquo said a government officerSince testing has been an issue Tope has asked the health department to focus on it ldquoBy testing everyone we should not reduce the positivity rate The high and low risk contacts of infected people should be tested This is how we can reduce transmissionrdquo he added According to the minister the Asha workers were trained in using rapid antigen and selftesting kits to expand the prevention measuresInstructions have also been issued to conduct fire and electricity audits of all health facilities The districts have been asked to organise a team of paediatricians and set up child wards to tackle the third wave