Quarantine condition for Chitralis returning home abolished

CHITRAL: Quarantine condition for people returning from cities has been dropped and now they will be on two weeks’ quarantine in their homes.

The district administration had set the condition of quarantining people of Chitral upon their return from different cities to check spread of the coronavirus. From now onward, they will remain on quarantine for two days at their homes.

But a policy regarding outsiders coming to Chitral will be announced soon, sources in the local admin told ChitralToday correspondent.

With the first case of the novel coronavirus in Pakistan in March this year, a large number of people living in different parts of the country started returning to their villages.

About 100 quarantine centres were set up in lower Chitral alone where hundreds of people were kept for two weeks.

In Upper Chitral, however, except one centre at a govt degree college most of the people returning from cities were allowed to go home.

So far, 40 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported from Lower Chitral and nine from Upper Chitral.

But there had been complaints about lack of facilities and poor conditions in these quarantine centres set up in government schools, hostels and hotels.

People were crammed in single rooms and forced to share beds and use common bathrooms against the standard operating procedures.

With the condition of quarantine gone, the district administration of Upper Chitral said the quarantine centres in the district would be closed within a couple of days.

However, the district administration of Lower Chitral said people currently on quarantine in the centres would be allowed to go home after taking advice from doctors.