Is India ready with its quarantine policy?

China has imposed quarantines across the Hubei province, and has locked down over 56 million people, in a bid to stop COVID-19 from spreading.

In the quarantined ship in Japan, the total number of infections has peaked to 218. With nearly 6% of the 3,711 passengers and crew members now infected, the 952-foot cruise ship carries the highest infection rate of the coronavirus anywhere in the world.

Villages in Vietnam with 10,000 people close to the nations capital were also placed under quarantine on 13^th Feb after six cases of the new coronavirus were identified there. The locking down of the commune of Son Loi, about 40 kilometres from Hanoi, represents the first mass quarantine outside of China since the virus emerged from China late last year.

Limitations

1. The people on quarantine are kept under a 14-day quarantine. If they are placed together and if anyone is diagnosed with the infection during that period, the quarantine will add another 14 days.
2. The longer several thousand people are cohoused, it goes on to propagate waves of infection.
3. A better way is to divide these people into smaller groups and quarantine them separately.
4. Why quarantine children <15 years when the virus is not risky for them.
5. Why not separate elderly people with comorbid conditions at high risk of deaths and quarantine them separately in one to one or small groups.
6. Why allow people to celebrate and have cultural programs during quarantine. As was seen in India, people danced together with surgical masks during quarantine period.
7. Ventilation system can connect one room to the other. There has been concern that the coronavirus can spread through pipes.
8. Stress and anxiety suppress the immune system, thus rendering people more vulnerable to contracting the virus. 
9. Law and order can be a problem in a country like India if Military is not in the picture.
10. Has India called an inter-political party meet on this subject?
11. Why can’t we quarantine people the way it was done in TB sanatoriums with both sun-balconies and a rooftop terrace where the patients would lie all day either in beds or on specially designed chairs. Remember sunlight can kill Covid-19.
12. Is the public ready with the situation if it so happens.

Copy to PMO

Dr KK Aggarwal

President CMAAO, HCFI and Past National President IMA