Centre advises states to protect contact tracing health workers

New Delhi: The Centre has advised state governments to provide police security to health workers while they are tracing contacts in clusters of an area. The move follows several instances of attacks on frontline health workers in the past few weeks. “Instances of violence against health workers engaged in surveillance and quarantine measures are being monitored,” a senior home ministry official said in New Delhi on Thursday.

The home ministry also said action would be taken under the National Disaster Management Act against officers if lockdown guidelines are violated and congregation of people and opening of shops and establishments are allowed.

“All residents of a containment area will be motivated for immediate self-reporting if any family member develops Covid-19 symptoms.” For rural areas, containment zone is aradius of 3 km, while buffer zone is 7 km. Urban localities will have administrative boundaries of residential colony as hotspots and a buffer zone of additional 5 km radius. A containment operation will be considered over 28 days after the last case reported in a district tests negative for the Sars-Cov-2 virus.

For contacts who have migrated from a state or the country, state governments have been asked to engage with community leaders and use community liaisons to assist with investigations. “Once the destination of travel (as well as any other transit locations) are determined, supervisors must begin notification,” the guidelines said.

In a related development, Cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba has asked chief secretaries to ensure safety, shelter and food security of migrant labourers and stranded persons. District collectors must appoint nodal officers who would be responsible for coordinating arrangements for migrant labourers. Each camp should be put in charge of a senior officer. There are over 13 lakh migrants stranded across 28,000 shelter camps.

In another advisory, the home ministry cautioned against the use of Zoom platform for teleconferencing. “Zoom is not a safe platform,” said the advisory. The platform is not for use for official purposes. The guidelines have been issued to safeguard private individuals too who use the platform, officials said.