Delhi CM Kejriwal directs officials to not paste posters outside homes of Covid-19 patients

•  AAP govt informed Delhi HC of its decision to discontinue the pasting of posters outside homes of Covid patients
• Delhi govt told HC that officials are instructed not to share details of CovidAAP positive persons.
• The decision came after a PIL was filed seeking guidelines to prevent stigmatization of patients in home-quarantine

THD NewsDesk, New Delhi: On November 3, Delhi’s AAP government informed the Delhi High Court of its decision to discard the process of applying posters outside the premises of Covid-19 positive persons to identify them. Officials have been directed to remove such posters to avoid the stigmatization of patients in home-quarantine. 

Representing the Delhi government, additional standing counsel Satyakam notified the high court of this new development. Further, he said that the government’s latest instructions also ordered officials not to share details of Covid-19 positive persons with their neighbors, resident welfare associations through Whatsapp groups.

The decision came after a Delhi resident and lawyer Kush Sharma filed a PIL asking the state government for revised guidelines regarding Covid-positive individuals self-isolating at home. In the plea, Sharma raised concern over the practice of circulating names and details of such patients to RWAs through Whatsapp groups. The petition claimed that this practice led to more harm than good as people started “shying away and deliberately choosing not to test themselves.” 

Reflecting the concerns of Covid-19 positive persons, the petition contended that they “ought to be given privacy to cope with and recover from the illness in peace and away from prying eyes.”

The measure was adopted to identify Covid-positive persons and restrain them from physically interacting with healthy people. However, people began to feel embarrassed by the enormous posters indicating their illness and feared social stigmatization in practice. Subsequently, it was noticed that people started to avoid getting themselves tested to shield themselves from the “public embarrassment” caused by the posters.

Source: ET Healthworld