With the delay in the testing and outcome of test reports, people who have completed 14 days of institutional quarantine are being forced to stay in the quarantine centres until their throat swab reports return negative. 

According to the norms, those who are in quarantine centre should be sent home after 14 days, but only after ensuring that their test reports are negative and they are not suffering from any of the symptoms of Covid-19. This has led the people in quarantine to enter into verbal duals with the people supervising them in the centres.

Taking a serious note on this, the district administration has increased the capacity of testing to 2,500 from 800 every day. Along with that, it has sent more than 2,500 samples to Bengaluru for testing. Apart from all such efforts, there are complaints about the unavailability of reports on time.

People of Kalaburagi, which shares its borders with neighbouring Maharashtra and Telangana States, migrate to Mumbai, Pune, and Hyderabad in search of jobs. But after the announcement of lockdown, in the wake of Covid-19, a large number of migrants had returned to the district. Later, the district administration has started quarantining the returnees in two Shramik trains, more than 700 buses, and those returned by walk in more than 600 schools, colleges, hostels, and lodges.

Speaking to DH, Rural Development & Panchayat Raj Department senior officer, who is supervising the quarantine centre said, of all the returnees, 1,000 people have completed the quarantine period, but, they cannot be sent home before getting the test reports. To solve this problem, the district administration has directed the doctors of Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) in the city to work in three shifts in the hospital laboratory. But, the testing is not being done to the expected level.

He also said that some people have become successful in running away from the quarantine centre, after the permission was denied to sent them home, even after completion of 14 days of quarantine.

A large number of people have been kept in quarantine in Chittapur, Kalagi, and Kamalapur taluks in the district. The labourers in these centres are becoming restless with the scorching temperature of 44-degree celsius. Some have demanded non-vegetarian food and a person had attacked one Asha worker for not providing meat. Some people are demanding liquor in quarantine centres too.