Bengal trusts passengers flying into the city to follow home quarantine rules and report any Covid-19 symptom during the isolation period.

Southern state Kerala is doing it differently, though.

Passengers arriving in Bengal from other states have to sign a form at the airport that they would remain home-quarantined for 14 days and report any symptom. There is no mechanism to check if any passenger develops any symptom they might not think as important or to alert passengers regarding updates in the Covid-19 guidelines.

In Calcutta, no official, be it from the health department or the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, could tell how many such home-quarantined passengers had reported symptoms.

Several officials appeared unsure of who could have such information.

In Kerala, an incoming passenger cannot overlook or take lightly any Covid-19 symptom. They receive calls daily from the government, at times more than once a day and from various government agencies.

A 52-year-old woman who recently reached her hometown in Pathanamthitta district from New Delhi, where she works, said she received calls from the state health department, district collectorate and the local panchayat during her 14-day quarantine that ended on Wednesday.

One day, she received two calls — the second to alert her about an update that loss of taste had been notified as a symptom of Covid-19 apart from other symptoms like fever, sore throat, runny nose and breathing distress. “I was pleasantly surprised that they were so methodical. The person called back to tell me that a new symptom of Covid-19 had been accepted in India and that I should look out for loss of taste and smell besides fever, sore throat, or difficulty in breathing,” she said.

The experience of a Calcuttan, who lives in Mumbai and reached his Dunlop home on June 6, was different. “I did not receive any call from anyone in the government. I was only made to sign a declaration at the airport that in case I develop any symptom, I will report to the government and that I will remain home-quarantined for 14 days,” the person said.

The private company executive said he got to know about the loss of smell or taste as Covid-19 symptoms from the media.

Public health professionals said Kerala’s strategy was better in dealing with the pandemic where “communication played a very important role”.

Shahid Jameel, the CEO of DBT-Wellcome Trust India Alliance, said Kerala had done what most Indian states had failed to do. “In the absence of any vaccine, the strategy to limit the infection is to test, trace and isolate. Kerala is tracing people very well and isolating them. It is a matter of how much you want to do, how far you want to go,” he said.

Jameel’s organisation works in biomedical, clinical and public health research and is funded by the Centre’s department of biotechnology and the Wellcome Trust of the UK.

Repeated calls to a person keeps him/her alert about the symptoms and creates an environment where the person would voluntarily take any symptom seriously and report, another public health professional said.

“The government has to create a feeling of trust among people… that I am by your side. It is then that people will engage with the government and report any adverse development,” the public health professional said.

Chandrima Bhattacharya, Bengal’s minister of state for health, asked Metro to talk to the director of health services (DHS), when asked about the protocol being followed in the state.

Calls to Ajay Chakraborty, the state’s DHS, went unanswered.

Officials of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, who are calling home-quarantined mild Covid-19 patients and their contacts, said it was “impossible” to call all passengers reaching the city from other states now that airline and train services had resumed.

“Earlier, we used to get the passenger list from the state government. We are no longer getting the list, so the question of calling does not arise. Besides, it is impossible to call tens of thousands of people every day now that so many flights and trains are coming to Calcutta daily,” an official said.

In Kerala, the tracking begins from the time someone books a flight ticket. The woman from Pathanamthitta said she had to register with the website, covid19jagratha.kerala.nic.in. Two days before her flight, she got a call asking her if there was anyone in her family in the vulnerable population category and whether she had a home with a room and a toilet only to herself. As her mother is 85-year-old, she was told she could not stay in the same house. She spent her 14-day quarantine in a relative’s place where the facilities were available.

“Registering with the website was mandatory to enter Kerala. It gave me a permit without which I would have been sent back from the Trivandrum airport,” she said. “I had to give very minute details like the ward of the gram panchayat where I would be going. I think this enabled the administration to delegate the task of contacting me to the local panchayat and helped decentralise the work,” the woman said.

The Dunlop resident, on the other hand, did not need to complete any such registration. He said no one asked for an entry permit when he reached the city airport.

Kerala also has the option of delivering food to people in home quarantine, if food cannot be prepared at their place of stay.