Posters, barricades back outside homes of Covid-19 patients, conditions apply

A BBMP worker on Wednesday puts up a poster on a barricade outside the apartment in Kumaraswamy Layout, Bengaluru, where the UK returnees who tested positive for the new strain live. Credit: DH Photo

A worker sprays a disinfectant outside the apartment complex. DH PHOTO/RANJU P

Authorities have gone back to putting up notices outside the homes of UK returnees who tested positive for the new strain of SARS-CoV-2, in an apparent violation of a Supreme Court directive.

In the first week of September, the BBMP had decided not to put up posters on the walls of Covid patients’ homes so that they are not stigmatised. It even decided not to put up barricades.

All this seems to have changed after three UK returnees were found infected with the new virus strain in the city. The BBMP enthusiastically put up posters and barricades outside their homes with messages that read: ‘BBMP Containment Zone’; ‘Covid-19, No Entry, South Zone’ or ‘Home quarantine, Don’t visit us now’.

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In the second week of December, the Supreme Court ruled that Covid-19 posters can be put up outside the homes of patients only on the directions of the competent authority under the National Disaster Management Act.

Rajendra Cholan, Special Commissioner (Health), BBMP, said barricades and posters were put up outside the homes of UK returnees carrying the new virus strain because their families refused to be moved to hotels. “These are peculiar cases,” he said, adding that no posters or barricades were put up outside the homes of other Covid patients.

The BBMP has also put up posters and barricades outside five hotels where the primary and secondary contacts of the UK returnees have been quarantined. The hotels are located in Majestic, and in Bommanahalli, South, Mahadevapura and Dasarahahalli zones, he added.

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Cholan said the BBMP administrator instructed the officials at a meeting on Wednesday not to put up barricades and posters outside individual houses provided the inhabitants agreed to be moved to institutional quarantine facilities.

Thirty five secondary and two primary contacts of the UK returnees carrying the new virus strain have been quarantined at an apartment in Vittalnagar, Kumaraswamy Layout.

Another four primary contacts are quarantined at an individual house in JP Nagar. All other contacts have been moved to hotels. In all, 48 primary and 57 secondary contacts of the UK returnees have been quarantined in hotels, he added.