Karnataka: How phone numbers misled War Room into believing 200 skipped quarantine

BELAGAVI: Police in Raichur were left dumbstruck and mystified when they began receiving alerts from the Covid-19 War Room in Bengaluru saying people in the district were “escaping” from quarantine – both home and institutional facilities. Cases have been spiking in the district, largely due to an influx of returnees from Maharashtra, and officials were alarmed that the infection could spill into the community.
Over a week, police received alerts that 206 people had escaped. Each time an alert was received, a team, along with district health officials, immediately went over to the home or facility to check. They found the alerts were false.
How then did the War Room come to the conclusion that people were escaping? It transpires that people in quarantine, mostly poor daily wage workers, had furnished alternate mobile phone numbers – mostly relatives – while being admitted to quarantine.
The War Room, which tracks mobile phones of those in quarantine via tower locations, found the numbers were showing up outside quarantine facilities. The owners of the phones were neither infected nor had travel history and were therefore free to move around, leading to the false alarms.
The district administration says many workers who returned from other states had either provided contact numbers of their kin or registered false numbers. Officials said most returnees who had provided alternate contact numbers did not have personal phones, let alone smart ones. The War Room too uses tower location instead of geo-fencing since many do not have smartphones.
R Venkatesh Kumar, deputy commissioner, Raichur, said migrant workers or the poor who did not had mobile phones furnished alternative numbers on the insistence of officials. “We had asked them to provide alternate numbers,” he said.
A relative of a returnee who is in home quarantine told ToI, “My maternal uncle does not have a mobile phone so he gave my contact number. I live in Manvi, while my uncle is at Lingasugur.” He said he has not received any calls from the police for verification yet.
CB Vedamurthy, superintendent of police, said there have been three cases of violation of home quarantine and 206. “We soon learnt the numbers furnished are of kin,” he said.
Kumar admitted there are practical problems monitoring those in quarantine and tracking phones is best option available. “There are about 11,000 people in home quarantine and it is impossible for officials to visit each house every day to keep tabs,” he said. “There may be false alarms, but it’s the only viable means at our disposal.”