BHUBANESWAR: The State government has done away with the practice of pasting posters and stickers outside the houses of Covid-19 positive persons. The government on Wednesday directed all districts to discontinue the practice with immediate effect.
As per the Covid-19 protocol, the local administration had been pasting posters detailing the number of family members and home isolation period on the houses of positive patients so that they do not come in contact with others and neighbours could report if they violated the restrictions.
Additional Chief Secretary PK Mohapatra said the decision has been taken since the number of positive cases is declining steadily across the State. “It is now felt that identification of the houses of Covid-19 patients under home isolation by pasting of posters outside their houses is not a requirement anymore,” he said.
The direction came a day after the Supreme Court held that Covid patients were being treated as ‘untouchables’ after pasting of such posters. It stigmatised people under home isolation.
On Tuesday, the apex court had said the posters outside the houses of Covid patients made people in their locality treat them differently even as the Centre maintained that there was no instruction from the Union Ministry of Health to the states to do so.
Govt relieves AYUSH doctors from Covid duty
Bhubaneswar: The State government on Wednesday directed all municipal commissioners and chief district medical and public health officers to release the AYUSH doctors deployed under them for Covid-19 duty. A notification issued by the Health and Family Welfare department stated that the ayurvedic medical officers and homeopathic medical officers engaged at different hospitals in the State are relieved with immediate effect for urgency in distribution of Ayurvedic drugs and restoration of AYUSH health services. The direction came following a report headlined ‘AYUSH drugs worth over `8 cr gather dust’ published in these columns on November 23.