BHUBANESWAR : With the single-day count in the city growing exponentially leaving institutional care facilities overburdened, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has started focusing more on home isolation. Nearly 70 per cent (pc) patients are now in home isolation.
“As of Saturday, the city has 2,315 active cases, of which 1,606 are in home isolation,” said a senior official of the corporation.
From 52 cases on April 1, the daily caseload has now increased by nine times to 451 on Saturday. The city now has 2,315 active cases against 310 on April 1.
“With more than 2,000 new patients being added in the last 17 days, the civic body has reactivated two dedicated Covid hospitals (DCHs) and kept two Covid care centres (CCCs) in readiness. However, focus continues to be on home isolation,” the official said and added that asymptomatic cases are being advised to undergo treatment in home isolation.
The civic body is providing home isolation kits to them and has engaged rapid response teams (RRTs) to monitor their health, the officer said.
The less number of institutional care facility is also a reason behind increase in home isolation patients.
Last year, the city had seven DCHs and five CCCs apart from a number of Covid care homes to deal with the surge.
However, at present, the city has only two DCHs, SUM and Aditya Ashwini, and two CCCs at Patia and Dumduma.
While the combined bed strength of the two DCHs is 1,036, the bed strength of CCCs at Patia and Dumduma is 45 and 60 respectively.
Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra had earlier directed the civic body to mobilise at least 50 RRTs for regular monitoring of home isolation patients and ensure implementation of Covid protocols.
BMC Deputy Commissioner Suvendu Sahoo said the civic body has decided to keep all the remaining DCHs and CCCs in readiness in the coming week for admission of patients.