Sisodia asks Centre to step in and roll back new home isolation rule
‘We have Kejriwal model and Shah model; must choose one that works for patients’
NEW DELHI: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday wrote to Home Minister Amit Shah, asking him to step in and roll back the new home isolation guidelines issued by LG Anil Baijal's office, a day after he had written to the Delhi Disaster Management Authority Chairperson to reconsider his decision. Sisodia said that he had asked the L-G to call for a DDMA meeting to settle the issue but that Baijal had not responded to him. As Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also called the new home isolation guidelines chaotic on Wednesday, Sisodia reiterated that these guidelines were causing panic and confusion among patients in the city with respect to what they must do if they test positive.
The Deputy CM also said that Delhi currently has two models to fight COVID-19, but this is no fight between Amit Shah's model and Arvind Kejriwal's model and that the governments should implement a system which does not create more problems for residents. Sisodia said, "According to the first model by HM Amit Shah, people testing positive are to be taken to quarantine centres, the administration has to arrange for buses to take them to the centre for a check-up. This is the new model that is burdening the already overburdened health care system," he said
"The second model is of CM Arvind Kejriwal — if someone is found positive, the medical team would make home visits for conducting a clinical assessment of the patient. Assessing the severity of his symptoms, if found asymptomatic, the medical team would direct the person to be under home isolation. If the team finds his condition serious, it would make arrangements to take him to the hospital, and if the team finds the patient asymptomatic but lacks the proper facility for home isolation, then the patient will be directed to a quarantine centre." "This rule needs to be changed as it has paved the way for extreme chaos in Delhi. As per the old system, when a person tested positive for COVID 19, he would either go for home isolation (for asymptomatic cases) or be hospitalised (when showing severe symptoms) or be kept under institutional quarantine, if he does not have the provision of selfisolation at home," he said in his letter to Shah.