How govt used home isolation model to contain COVID cases during lockdown

New Delhi: As it augmented beds in dedicated hospitals and kept ready plush hotels and banquet halls to meet needs of serious patients, the Delhi government had introduced a model of home isolation during the COVID-19-induced lockdown which also proved an effective way to contain coronavirus cases.

The first COVID-19 case in Delhi was reported on March 1 and the first major surge of the pandemic had occurred in June 2020, when cases in excess of 3,000 were recorded for the first time in the national capital.

Today marks the completion of exactly one year of the nationwide lockdown imposed in the wake of the spread of the deadly coronavirus pandemic that has till date infected over 6.49 lakh people and claimed lives of 10,967 in Delhi.

On Tuesday, the national capital recorded 1,101 cases, the highest daily count this year, and the first time it crossed the 1000-mark in 2021. Daily incidences, active cases, containment zones and home isolation cases, all metrics have been showing an upward trend for the past several days.

The city government, soon after the lockdown was imposed late March last year, had chalked out several measures to check the spread of the coronavirus infection, and one of the innovative steps taken by it was quarantining asymptomatic and mild cases at theirs homes.

With movement of general citizens restricted and people afraid to step out of their houses during the lockdown, the decision to let infected people in certain category of cases to self-quarantine under the government supervision, also brought relief to many such patients.

The Delhi government had also significantly scaled up daily testing capacity after June, and went aggressive in tracing cases by conducting tests at markets, mohalla clinics and other crowded places.

The city had witnessed a big wave in spread of infection over a long period of time in June, and on June 23, the daily cases count had mounted to 3,947, the highest single-day spike in Delhi till date then, with 68 fatalities in one day, which had taken the overall tally here to over 66,000.

Daily cases continued to be reported in excess of 3,000 till June 26 when the figure stood at 3,460. The cases count had relatively been lower in July and August. After showing a spike again since September 1, Delhi had recorded 3,256 fresh COVID-19 cases on September 6, the first time since June 26 when the daily cases count had breached the 3000-mark.