The Karnataka government has a novel way to ensure those in home quarantine do not venture out and comply with the directions issued by the health department. It has developed an application - 'Quarantine Watch' - where it has asked citizens in home quarantine to upload selfies every hour. "All persons under order of Home Quarantine shall send a selfie to the government every hour from home. If a home quarantine person fails to send the selfie every 1 hour (except sleeping time from 10 pm to 7 am), the government team will reach such defaulters and they are liable to be shifted to a government-created mass quarantine (centre)," Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said in a statement released on Monday. "This will be monitored by tech experts from the 24/7 War Room functioning from Bengaluru. This initiative is a complemented effort by the government to monitor and inspect compliance of all citizens under home-quarantine," Jawaid Akhtar, Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department said. He added that each such photo uploaded to the application would include GPS coordinates and a time stamp. "This would be cross-verified with their photo and address details available with the government teams," Akhtar said. The process will be followed by the government 'Quarantine Check' teams that visit houses to inspect the same as well. "The teams will use the app to click the photo of home-quarantined persons and send it to the government," the statement read. #COVID19India: Govt of #Karnataka launches mobile app #CoronaWatch (currently available only on Android) with features: ??Spots visited by #COVID19 patients ??Nearby medical facilities including hospitals, testing centres Download from pic.twitter.com/0heRuVSydp — Ralph Alex Arakal (@ralpharakal) March 25, 2020 The government had launched another mobile application named 'Corona Watch' on March 25 with features including spots visited by COVID-19 patients, and nearby medical facilities (hospitals and testing centres).
