New Delhi: At least 69 per cent of respondents to a survey want the government to issue a ‘Covid Warrior’ certificate to those who have recovered from the disease so that they can take up jobs in hotspots as well as jobs that require travel and person-to-person contact.
Conducted by community social media platform LocalCircles, the survey found that 16 per cent were unsure if the certificate should be issued while 15 per cent believed it should not be. Of the respondents, 51 per cent came from tier-1 cities, 33 per cent from tier-2 cities and 16 per cent from other cities and rural areas.
More than 16,000 responses were received from across 212 districts of the country, out of which 67 per cent were from men while 33 per cent of the respondents were women.
Chennai-based infection expert, Dr Abdul Ghafur had proposed the Covid warrior concept to LocalCircles, after which the survey was conducted.
“A Covid Warrior certificate or identification will help lakhs of daily wage workers even in containment zones in our country to commute and make a living. Thousands of individuals join the Covid recovered list on a daily basis, strengthening our army of Covid recovered and immune warriors, ready to contribute actively to our economy,” said Dr Ghafur.
The respondents were also asked what they considered the best option to conduct this process, to which 61 per cent said that this should be integrated with the Aadhaar card system, while 30 per cent said that it should be a separate identification. The remaining 9 per cent were unsure.
LocalCircles noted that since the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) records details of all recovered patients of India, the same information can be used to link up with the UIDAI, the nodal body that issues Aadhaar numbers, to create a new ‘Covid Warrior’ or ‘Recovered’ category in the Aadhaar database.
“After a patient recovers from Covid-19, the status on their Aadhaar card can possibly be updated to ‘Covid Warrior/Recovered’ as ‘Yes’ and they could easily take a printout of their Aadhaar card and show it at various checkpoints to gain…unrestricted movement even in the containment zones. While such an identification would be available, it is totally up to the individual if they would like to use this identifier when seeking opportunities,” the survey stated.
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