NEW DELHI: The Delhi government’s decision to do away with the practice of pasting cautionary posters outside the homes of people infected with COVID-19 and isolated inside, will help reduce the stigma attached to the disease, experts said on Friday.
However, they also said this has some “disadvantages too”.
Official sources had said on Thursday that there will be no sticking of posters outside the houses of COVID-19 patients under home-isolation in the national capital. They had said the move is aimed at “minimising the stigma” resulting from affixing of such posters at the front portion of the houses of such patients.
Dr Suranjit Chatterjee, Senior Consultant, Internal Medicine at Apollo Hospitals here, termed it a very “positive move”.
“I think this will help in reducing the stigma people have attached to COVID-19. There is so much stigma that one patient today came to my clinic from all the way from Bihar for a check-up. He feared he had the infection, but his family never got him tested and he just isolated himself back in Bihar,” he said.
Chatterjee, however, cautioned that this opportunity given to people who are home isolated, “should not be misused”.
“The infected people should stay at home and not roam around, and show greater responsibility towards the community, by observing all the norms,” he said.
Chatterjee also underlined the stigma faced by doctors and other healthcare workers who got infected by COVID-19, saying, this new move will come as a relief to them too.
—PTI

Press Trust of India