No more posters outside homes of confirmed COVID-19 cases, here’s why

In a major decision, the Delhi government officials have decided to abolish the practice of putting up posters outside the homes of confirmed positive cases of Coronavirus. The decision was reportedly taken as many symptomatic patients were understood to be desisting from getting tested due to the fear of government labelling poster outside their homes, the Indian Express reported. The Delhi government’s response had also been sought by the Delhi High Court on the plea of ending the practice of putting up posters a week ago. The posters which were posted by the government officials mentioned the number of family members that had tested positive and also mentioned the duration of their home isolation. The government also decided that the existing posters will also be taken down across the city.

A senior government official wanting to remain anonymous told the Indian Express that due to the stigma attached with the disease, people were not coming out to get tested despite exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms. The official also said that in several cases patients reached the hospitals only when their condition had turned severe leading to a spike in the number of Covid related casualties.

At present, there are about 22,232 active cases of Covid-19 in the city with more than 12000 patients under home isolation. The tally of Coronavirus cases breached the mark of 3 lakh on Thursday with an addition of 2726 new cases on the day. A total of 5653 deaths have also been reported due to Covid related complications in the city since the outbreak.

In another related development, the report prepared by an expert committee headed by NITI Aayog member Dr V K Paul has advised the government that testing should be ramped up towards surveillance rather than simply attaining target. The report also said that increase in testing should be reflected in finding of more new cases rather than simply aiming at decreasing the positivity rate by doing more tests.

It also expressed concern over increased testing being done with the help of rapid antigen kits with as many as 90 percent of the total tests in some districts of the city. It also mentioned that the positivity rate of rapid antigen tests was only 4.3 percent whereas that of RT-PCR test being more than 20.3 percent hinting at false negatives in the rapid antigen tests.