BENGALURU: The addresses of home-quarantined inter-state arrivals without their name and other personal details have been put up on the government website ‘covid19.karnataka.gov.in’. “This is being done in order to enable and involve community for home quarantine support in a positive way. The moment 14 days’ home quarantine period is over the address will be removed.
All arriving from outside Karnataka must observe home quarantine for 14 days and Maharashtra arrivals have an additional 7 days of institutional quarantine,” said Munish Moudgil, incharge, State Covid-19 war room. Citizens have a mixed response to this decision. “This seems like the government’s last resort. If there is self-regulation, this would not have been needed.
There is no privacy concern as anyway neighbours get to know when someone gets quarantined,” said Clement Jayakumar, a resident in Bellandur. However, Tara Krishnaswamy, member of Citizens for Bengaluru, said, “Why does one need to know if someone is being home-quarantined? We have encountered other epidemics in India like polio, but we never approached these diseases as a security threat.
With corona, we have not approached it as a public health issue, but as policing issue.” The information put up includes categories such as stranded migrants, stranded students if their educational institutions or hostel has been closed, those returning from abroad at airports outside Karnataka, etc. It includes their from and to address, taluk, district, date of travel and if they are with family member or not.