Selfie or Else: Karnataka Govt Warns of 'Mass Quarantine' if Suspected Covid-19 Patients Fail to Send in Hourly Photos

Bengaluru: Despite facing criticism for releasing personal information of those in Covid-19 quarantine, the Karnataka administration has come up with another diktat for suspected coronavirus patients – hourly selfies.

According to a recent order, suspected patients will have to download a yet-to-be-released Quarantine Watch app and upload their selfies on an hourly basis to update officials of their whereabouts. The image uploaded will store the person’s GPS coordinates as metadata.

If a quarantined person fails to send a selfie every hour (except from 10pm to 7am), the government response team will shift such “defaulters” to “mass quarantine", a statement released by Karnataka medical education minister K Sudhakar warned.

While the app is still in the works, the government hopes it will be up and running in the coming week.

Reports suggest that the images uploaded by the quarantined person will be checked by a government photo verification team. “Wrong pictures” will be considered as defaulters and asked to remove themselves from their homes and taken to government-maintained facilities.

Data released by the government shows over 14,000 individuals were under home quarantine in Bengaluru alone. Critics have questioned whether the state can handle the workload of sifting through such massive pile of images.

State Health Secretary Jawaid Akthar assured that the initiative will rely on technology. "This is completely backed by technology. Our team in the Covid-19 war room will be handling the data,” he said, adding that officials want people to take home quarantine more seriously.

The government’s home quarantine enforcement squad placed 22 people in institutional quarantine facilities on Monday after receiving complaints that they violated prohibitory orders. Till date, 142 people in Karnataka have been to institutional facilities after they were found violating the mandatory 14-day home quarantine period.

Authorities arrested 10 people and registered a case against them for escaping quarantine in Bengaluru and going to their native place in Grumitkal.

Karnataka has reported 91 coronavirus infections, including three deaths, while six people have recovered.