Introduction: Disease transmission patterns of COVID-19 have shown that masking, social distancing, contact tracing and quarantine measures are important strategies for reducing transmission The effective implementation of quarantine is determined by the commitment of the people and monitoring by the State The aim of the study was to find out the effectiveness of home quarantine practises and its role in determining SARS CoV2 transmission Methods: Record-based retrospective cohort study was conducted among expatriates of Kerala who were on quarantine at their homes and later tested positive for SARS -CoV-2 Quarantine practises were categorised as strict room quarantine, incomplete room quarantine, home quarantine and no quarantine Risk of transmission was assessed using risk ratios Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to find out the determinants of SARS CoV2 transmission Results: The median (IQR) age and duration of quarantine of 95 study participants were found to be 35 (29, 44) years and 7 (3,13) days, respectively Majority of the participants practised strict room quarantine (57%), whereas 11 6%, 16 8% and 14 7% practiced incomplete room, home and no quarantine, respectively Home quarantine without room quarantine had 24 times odds for transmitting disease [OR (95%CI)): 24 14 (4 87--119 75), P &lt; 0 001] and not being in quarantine for any duration before being diagnosed was found to be 14 times riskier when compared with strict room quarantine [OR (95%CI)): 14 44 (2 42-86 17), P = 0 003] Discussion: Low-resource settings successful in the initial phases of COVID-19 pandemic should make periodic revisions in the quarantine guidelines while continually promoting physical distancing strategies
Quarantine practices and COVID-19 transmission in a low-resource setting: Experience of Kerala, India