Home isolation cut to 7 days as 3rd wave surges

The Union government issued new guidelines on Wednesday to reduce the home isolation period for people with Covid-19 from 10 days to seven as long as they have not had fever in the last three days.

- Rhythma Kaul

The move follows similar steps by the UK and the US, where isolation periods have been cut, following the near-global pandemic takeover by the Omicron variant of the SarsCOV-2, which studies have established to be leading to milder disease.

India reported 89,972 new cases on Wednesday, continuing a sharp spike. Compared to Tuesday's numbers, Wednesday saw new infections rise by more than 58%, as per HT's Covid dashboard. In Delhi, this number jumped 94.6% in a single day to lead to 10,665 new cases.

Top government officials said the current R number of the epidemic, a measure of the intensity of the outbreak, has now reached 2.69, surpassing the 1.69 recorded during the Delta variant peak, although the outbreak is leading to fewer hospitalisations.

"It seems hospitalisation rate is very low. We are following this data very closely... In Delhi, the hospitalisation rate is about 3.7%, and in Mumbai, we heard an officer saying it was around 5%. In previous waves, last year and in 2020, the typical hospitalisation rate was 20%," said Niti Aayog member VK Paul during the health briefing.

But, he cautioned, "it was important to remember that if there is a very large number of cases, even these small proportions will become a lot in numbers".

Experts said the sharp surge and the milder outcomes complicate efforts to balance containment measures and avoid a disproportionate disruption to everyday life if those who don't need to are forced to isolate.