BMC Issues New Home Isolation Guidelines as Mumbai Sees Record Covid Spike | All You Need to Know

On a day when Mumbai registered a record number of coronavirus infections since the pandemic began, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) issued a circular allowing asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients to be isolated at home for seven days rather than being hospitalised.

With this decision, the formal home isolation period also has been brought down to seven days from the earlier 10 days in Mumbai. However, patients with severe symptoms or with comorbidities will be hospitalised basis on the clinical situation on a case-to-case basis.

Further, those who cannot isolate at home will continue to be quarantined at BMC’s isolation facility. Meanwhile, the state health department has directed the district administrations to follow the Centre’s guidelines on home quarantine and hospitalisation.

According to BMC officials, the decision was taken on the basis of the new and revised home quarantine guidelines issued by the Central government on January 5.

The revised guidelines state that those with severe symptoms like chest congestion, fever for over three days, or with oxygen levels below 93 require medical attention.

However, those choosing home isolation will require a caregiver 24×7, ideally who is fully vaccinated for being the link between medical officer and the positive patient. Also, those with comorbidities shall be allowed for home isolation, but a decision will be taken on the basis of medical evaluation.

The city has been witnessing a spike in Covid cases for the last 20 days and the Omicron variant is said to be the driving force. The BMC in a statement on December 31 had said that its genome sequencing had revealed that 55% of the total samples were Omicron infections.

Mumbai reported 20,181 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, a fresh all-time single-day high and up 5,015 infections, or 33.06 per cent, from a day ago, while four more patients succumbed to the disease, said the BMC. With these additions, the financial capital’s coronavirus tally jumped to 8,53,809, while the death toll climbed to 16,388, the BMC said in a bulletin.

The growth rate COVID-19 cases shot up to 0.99 per cent between December 30, 2021 and January 5, 2022, while the case doubling rate slipped to 70 days, as per the bulletin.With 2,837 patients discharged from hospitals during the day, Mumbai’s active tally jumped to 79,260 from 61,923 within a span of 24 hours.

Read all the Latest India News here