Telangana Health Department has issued guidelines for home quarantine for containment of COVID-19, which includes details on who should be kept under quarantine, what should the person under observation do, distance family members have to maintain if they have to stay in the same room, and other details.
While quarantine of persons is separating people who are not ill but who may have been exposed to an infectious agent or disease with the objective of monitoring symptoms and early detection of cases, isolation is separation of ill or infected persons from others so as to prevent the spread of infection or contamination.
The 14 days’ quarantine applies to (1) All people who have a travel history from other countries (symptomatic or asymptomatic) (2) People who are asymptomatic contacts of lab confirmed cases (3) Suspects who are COVID negative before the discharge from the isolation facility.
The Health department officials said that the person under home quarantine should stay in a well-ventilated room with an attached toilet. She or he should not move out of the allocated room during the quarantine period.
“If another family member needs to stay in the same room, it’s advisable to maintain a distance of at least 1 metre between the two. The person needs to stay away from elderly people, pregnant, children, and persons with co-morbidities like diabetes, tuberculosis, heart ailments, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases etc.,” as stated in the guidelines.
They were suggested to change mask every six hours and the used mask should be considered as potentially infected. The masks used by patients, care givers, close contacts during home care should be disinfected using ordinary bleach solution (5%) or sodium hypochlorite solution (1%) and then disposed of either by burning or deep burial.
The guidelines also have instructions to family members of persons under home quarantine, sanitation of rooms, clothes, surfaces in the home.
