Thanjavur/Madurai: In early April, a 30-year-old journalist who had turned himself in at a hospital in Thanjavur to test for the coronavirus infection found himself in the news. “I had travelled from Delhi on 24 March along with some members who had attended the Delhi religious conference, and when I saw what was unfolding that week, I decided to voluntarily get myself checked up at a hospital," he said over the phone from a quarantine facility.
Two days before the test results came out—he eventually tested positive—he and his family were in the midst of a more serious crisis than the disease itself: social stigma. “Even before I tested positive, rumours flew thick and fast that I had the disease and people started shunning my family." He