Jharkhand puts over three lakh people under govt and home quarantine

The huge influx of migrant workers in the state has not only swelled the number of people observing home and institutional quarantine by three lakhs but also gave a further thrust to ever increasing graph of Covid-19 cases, which now crossed 300-mark and counting.

What is more worrying is the scanty sample testing. While the state has currently over 2.9 lakh people observing home or institutional quarantine, the number of samples tested so far is only 42,000.

According to state health department’s May 21 bulletin, the number of people in quarantine centres rose by nearly seven times from 10,304 to 71,123 and those staying in home quarantine increased by almost double from 1.11 lakh to over 2.19 lakh in last 10 days.

“The steep growth in number of quarantined people is due to migrant workers coming in hoards in state,” said a senior health department’s official.

These workers, after their arrival in the state, are being sent to institutional quarantine or home quarantine. Besides district level quarantine centres, such facilities have been set up at school buildings and other government buildings at village and block levels.

The bulletin also mentioned that of the 303 positive cases detected till May 21 (Friday), 147 cases were found in migrant workers who returned to Jharkhand after May 5.

“The influx of people from outside the state will definitely increase the positive cases here. It has been noticed that many workers, who were tested positive, had arrived from red zones like Mumbai and Surat. It’s, therefore, necessary to keep all those coming from these locations in institutional quarantine,” said Dr A K Singh, state president of Indian Medical Association (IMA).

“But for effective containment of the disease, we have to escalate sample testing and keep a strict monitoring on movement of people observing isolation. It has been reported that many workers put in quarantine centres at village schools came out freely without a check,” added Singh.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been spreading its tentacles after the return of migrant workers in Jharkhand as the state’s 21 of 24 districts have come under its grip.

The worst-affected districts are Garhwa, Hazaribag, Giridih and Koderma from where 47, 33, 16 and 16 cases respectively had been reported till May 21.

Ranchi district, which reported the state’s first case on March 31, has alone witnessed 112 positive cases, including two confirmed cases in migrant workers so far. However, it saw swift recovery of patients as 91 have been cured and discharged.

While, the disease seven days growth rate in the state stood at 5.84% against the national average of 5.36%, the doubling period is 12.20 days against the national average of 13.28 days. Jharkhand’s recovery rate is, however, better than the national average which is 40.30% against state’s 42.72%.

Box

Date. People in IQ. People in HQ

May 11. 10304. 111064

May 12. 12459. 115532

May 13. 15218. 124170

May 14. 19914. 128960

May 15. 23812. 122152

May 16. 28222. 152017

May 17. 32521. 158975

May 18. 51718. 186313

May 19. 64425. 196763

May 20. 67021. 207830

May 21. 71123. 219036

IQ--Institutional quarantine

HQ--Home quarantine