After Punjab, Chandigarh may do away with quarantine posters as well

Admn has been receiving requests from Covid-19 patients about psychological trauma faced due to the stigma attached to such posters pasted outside their houses.

Following Punjab’s lead, the UT Administration is mulling to discontinue the practice of putting up posters outside the houses of Covid patients under home isolation or quarantine.

Houses sealed as part of a micro-containment zone in Sector 22-A, Chandigarh, on Tuesday. (Keshav Singh/HT)

Of the 2,991 active cases in Chandigarh as of Tuesday, more than 1,000 patients are in home isolation.

Currently, the administration follows the policy of affixing posters outside the houses of Covid-19 patients to make locals aware of infected people in their surroundings.

But, the administration has been flooded with requests by the patients to discontinue the practice. “Patients are calling up or texting officials that they should not be made to suffer the fear and stigma of social isolation resulting from the posters affixed at the entrance of their residences. There is a social stigma attached to pasting of posters and patients feel psychologically traumatised because of it,” said a senior UT official, who didn’t want to be named.

Notably, Punjab government had recently revoked its earlier decision regarding similar posters.

CONTAINMENT ZONES SET TO CROSS 50 MARK

The number of micro-containment zones in the city is set to cross the 50 mark with the Area Affected Committee recommending that 29 more areas be given the tag.

It was on September 8 last when UT had notified 24 micro-containment zones in the city.

Chandigarh was declared containment-zone free in June with perimeter controls being removed from the Bapu Dham Colony. But, after sharp increase in the Covid-19 cases thereafter, the UT administration formulated the micro-containment policy for demarcating even three to four houses as containment zones.

However, the policy was not employed on a large-scale. This changed with the central government officials on September 4 asking the administration to step up creation of the containment zones to restrict the spread of the virus in the city.