IV: Glimpses from villages in the Northeast: Traditional quarantine measures came alive during the COVID-19 pandemic. (February 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Haokip, Thongkholal
• Is Part Of: Contributions to Indian sociology. Volume 56:Number 1(2022)
• Page Start: 94
• Page End: 98
• Publication Date: 2022-02
• Subjects: COVID-19 -- indigenous peoples -- Northeast India -- pandemic -- quarantine; India -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; 301.095405
• DOI: 10.1177/00699667221106017
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0069-9667

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, communities in the hills of Northeast India fought the epidemic by taking recourse to traditional preventive health measures, both sealing off villages and quarantining to combat the spread of the highly infectious coronavirus. These traditional emergency health measures grew out of local experience with disease but resemble the current practices of lockdown and quarantine. Quarantine measures, dismissed by the World Health Organization in 2018 as 'no longer efficient', were re-established in the course of the epidemic. However, these practices continued to be part of the oral tradition of villages in the Northeast and highlighted an aspect of their autonomy in this arena.