Unreasonable contact tracing leads to panic among residents of Noida
Ghaziabad/GB Nagar: The Coronavirus threat is haunting a former employee with Ceasefire company of sector 135 in Noida even after he left the company around six years ago. He could have hardly imagined that a telephonic conversation with one of his former colleagues to know about his health conditions could land him in serious trouble and that he would be treated as a Corona suspect too.
Amit Kumar (name changed) worked as regional manager with Ceasefire company till 2014, and is currently assisting the extension project of terminal-1 at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport. "A former colleague called me on my phone and informed that several employees with Ceasefire company are getting infected with Coronavirus. As I was worried about their health, I contacted one of my old friends who still works with the same company and called him to take stock of his health condition. He told me that he has tested positive and is admitted at a hospital in Delhi," he told Millennium Post.
He also tried to call other employees but failed to contact any of them. However, he was traced through the call details of an employee who tested positive and a few days later, he got call from a Noida cop who enquired if he had met any of these employees in the past few days. "I told the policeman that after 2014, I had never met any person associated with Ceasefire company. Yesterday, I received a call from a cop posted at Tila Mor police station in Ghaziabad and he also asked me same questions. My answer to him remained the same but he adviced me to get tested for Covid-19. In the evening, the same cop asked me to meet him outside the society where an ambulance was already stationed. I had no idea that they had come to shift me in an isolation ward of a quarantine center," Amit added.
He was shifted to an isolation Center at IMS college in Ghaziabad on Wednesday evening where he claimed to have been kept in a dilapidated condition and no one had yet come to take his samples or even to see him since he was shifted on Wednesday night. "I have even asked doctors as why I was brought here and what will be done with me but no one has come to attend me till now. I am kept with another person from Ghaziabad who was also picked from his house over the suspicion of being infected. The conditions here are very pathetic and I have asked doctors to allow me to remain in isolation at home but they have denied. There is also a threat of getting infected with the virus as around 62 other Corona suspects are kept under isolation in the same Center," Amit narrated.
Ceasefire corporate company which emerged as the largest cluster in Gautam Buddh Nagar district, infecting nearly 60 per cent of the total number of persons, has posed a threat to district administration and they are following a time-bound response system to slow down the growth rate of Covid-19 cases. Health department and police are leaving no stone unturned to trace all the possible contacts of those who have tested positive.
According to a senior health officer, the Gautam Buddh Nagar district administration have traced nearly 6,000 contacts of those tested positive. "We have quarantine facility at Galgotias engineering college as well as university hostels, Gautam Buddh university hostel, district hospital in sector 39 of Noida and other private institutions and hotels. A capacity of house of over 2,000 such persons is available with us. 456 persons are already kept in institutional quarantine while nearly fifteen hundred are at home isolation. Samples of 2,617 persons have been collected till now," Dr DK Ohri, Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Gautam Buddh Nagar said.
Detailing over the process of contact tracing of positive Covid-19 patients, the officer informed that teams from Health department interacts with the individual found positive and gathers information of places the person has visited over the past week and people they have been in touch with. "The family members and close contacts are then identified and they are picked up. Furthermore, the teams get in touch with tertiary contacts like domestic helps, drivers and relatives of the primary and secondary contacts," the CMO added.
The panic due to Coronavirus spread is causing a threat among people as many turn out to be suspects in screening without showing any actual symptom of Covid-19. A sales professional living at a high rise society in Noida was denied entry to his flat situated at a high rise society after his body temperature was high due to the summer heat. "On Thursday morning around 11 am, I was returning on foot from a nearby market after purchasing groceries. Security personnel deployed at main gate checked my body temperature through thermal screening (which is a process they follow for every person entering the society) and it showed 98.8 degree. They pointed me out as a suspect case and denied entry inside. However, I had to struggle to convince them that I had no symptoms of Covid-19 and the body temperature is due to the summer heat. They kept me waiting for nearly 20 minutes till my body temperature came back to normal," said Sudhanshu Sharma, a resident of Amrapali zodiac society in sector 120 of Noida.
