A week ago, five individuals returned from India to their home at Purnihawa in Yashodhara Rural Municipality-5, Kapilvastu, but instead of being placed at a quarantine facility, as is the norm for returnees, they were sent straight to their families by Ward Chief Shyam Narayan Upadhyay. All four quarantine facilities in the ward had already been closed down, according to Upadhyay. The returnees are now living with their families and are moving around the village without any restriction, according to locals, raising the risk of a coronavirus outbreak in the community.

“I had informed the rural municipality chief about the returnees but since all the quarantine facilities were closed, they were sent home to self-quarantine,” said Upadhyay. All 29 quarantine centres in the rural municipality are now being emptied out.

Once home, hardly anyone adopts preventive guidelines for Covid-19.

“This has spread fear among the villagers but officials have not paid heed to our concern,” said Deependra Nath Shukla, a local of Sadwa in Kapilvastu-3.

Quarantine facilities in a majority of Kapilvastu’s local units, including Mayadevi, Yashodhara and Suddhodhan, are now closed since most returnees have completed the stipulated 14-day quarantine period and have been sent home to self-isolate.

The local units have no record of how many people have returned and are currently staying in home quarantine.

“The policy is that all the returnees should be staying in quarantine facilities for at least 14 days,” Yogendra Bhagat, chief of the District Health Office, said. “There’s no policy as such that says returnees can quarantine at home.” Kapilvastu has a total of 745 Covid-19 cases, the third highest in the country.

Like in Kapilvastu, quarantine centres in other districts of Province 5 have also begun to shut down. In Dang, many have fled quarantine centres as the test results have taken too long to arrive. And not all who are staying in quarantines are being tested.

“We have asked those who have completed 14 days in quarantine to stay in home isolation for seven more days,” Sunita Poudel, chief of the District Health Office, Dang, said. But even though the office has mandated home isolation, there’s no such body regulating it.

This has led to a rise in the risk of a coronavirus outbreak, further exacerbated by the fact that even those who are not returnees have been infected, said Narayan Gharti, chief of health department at Ghorahi Sub Metropolitan City. While at one point, the district had over 11,000 people in quarantines, the number has slumped to just about 3,000 now, according to Gharti. As of Monday, the district has registered 590 Covid-19 cases.

Meanwhile in Palpa, health workers are having a hard time regulating quarantine and isolation centres, and nobody is paying attention to those quarantining at home. The district has recorded 498 cases so far. Rem Bahadur Magar, chief of health department at Nisdi Rural Municipality, said that as coronavirus cases have seen a surge, health workers are scrambling to monitor quarantine and isolation centres.

“There’s not enough staff to regulate the quarantine and isolation centres,” Magar said. “In the current situation, paying attention to those who are self-isolating at home after completing their quarantine time would be a far cry.”

Sudarshan Thapa, the focal person at the Butwal-based Corona-specific hospital, said that making returnees stay in home quarantine would not be a good idea, as many houses in villages do not have separate toilets and many can’t even afford a separate room as stipulated by the guideline issued by WHO for home quarantine.

“Many local units are sending returnees straight to home quarantine without any regulation, which will only lead to a rapid community transfer of the virus,” he said.

(Manoj Paudel in Kapilvastu, Durgalal KC in Dang, Madhab Aryal in Palpa and Sanju Paudel in Rupandehi contributed reporting.)