Despite not being the official policy, the Greater Chennai Corporation is saying no to home quarantine for low risk COVID-19 patients and is pushing them into the city’s hospitals and COVID care centres (CCC) for five to 10 days. Even those with breakthrough infections and mild symptoms are not being spared. TNM spoke to multiple young, low risk and fully vaccinated COVID-19 patients who confirmed that they had been forced to get hospitalised or go to a CCC.
Nitin Raj* tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday. He is a 29-year-old clinically confirmed mild case of COVID-19. He has no comorbidities, had satisfactory SPO2 levels and ample space to quarantine at home. Yet, the Corporation told him to isolate at a private hospital or CCC.
“I was asked to take a CT Scan from a hospital on Saturday. When we visited a hospital for the scan, the doctor there told us that the Corporation officials were asking her not to recommend home quarantine to her COVID patients. She told me to go to a facility. At the time, I didn’t want to go against her advice and decided to get hospitalised,” he says.
Nitin is now admitted to a private hospital on Spurtank Road and has to pay Rs 50,000 for the facility and the services, which he did not need in the first place. Nitin lives with his parents in a spacious three bedroom house and even has an attached bathroom, a balcony and ample facilities to isolate. However, he says that he listened to the Corporation as he was not aware of the state government’s quarantine rules for COVID patients. The Tamil Nadu government clearly recommends home quarantine for low risk cases with an oxygen saturation of above 96.
Anna Nagar resident Rakesh*, too, faced similar pressure from a Corporation doctor who asked him to undergo institutional quarantine. However, Rakesh* says he pushed back, citing the TN government order and stating that he was a low risk, double dosed case of breakthrough infection with very mild symptoms. “After much negotiation, they reluctantly allowed me to quarantine at home but asked me not to step out of my room for the next 10 days. It helped that my doctor had also given me a home quarantine recommendation letter, which I showed them,” Rakesh told TNM.
According to sources, there are top-down instructions to enforce institutional quarantine on COVID patients, despite no official orders. Senior officials from the Corporation said that the measure has been taken to avoid community spread of the infection, as many patients were found to be flouting home quarantine rules. Further, family contacts who live with patients have been found to get infected. To avoid this, the Corporation officials have been discreetly asking patients to isolate themselves under medical supervision at a CCC or a hospital, either private or government.
Exceptions are only being granted to specific cases, where the Corporation doctors find that the patient may be better off isolating at home. This includes geriatric patients, new mothers and so on.
*Names changed to protect patient identity