More than 60 local residents of Gokul Nagar slum in Thane stopped Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) staff from tracing contacts of a patient on Wednesday, claiming the patient had tested positive more than two weeks ago.
On June 4, two residents of Gokul Nagar, aged 48 and 62, tested positive. The 62-year-old patient died on Wednesday night, while the 48-year-old recovered. As another 67-year-old man tested positive on Tuesday, TMC officials arrived on Wednesday to take his family and neighbours to a quarantine centre.
Local residents, however, created a ruckus, thinking the officials were tracing contacts of the patient who had recovered.
Even though TMC officials clarified that the survey was for the other patient, the residents refused to give in.
Shankar Patole, assistant civic commissioner of the ward, said, “We reached the area to take the high-risk contacts to a quarantine centre on Wednesday. Coincidentally, one of the patients who had tested positive a fortnight ago had returned home after recovering. Locals thought we had visited the slums to quarantine his contacts, but we had come for another patient. As people refused to cooperate, we had to return without quarantining any of the residents who were at high risk.”
Satish Bane, 34, a resident of Gokul Nagar, said, “The officials came with a bus to take away our neighbours to quarantine centres as they were high-risk contact of those who tested positive 15 days ago. Such lackadaisical behaviour by the corporation was unexpected. They had come to quarantine the family and neighbours of a patient who has already recovered. We started asking them for details but they were confused and backed off. There was no major ruckus.”
{{/usCountry}}Satish Bane, 34, a resident of Gokul Nagar, said, “The officials came with a bus to take away our neighbours to quarantine centres as they were high-risk contact of those who tested positive 15 days ago. Such lackadaisical behaviour by the corporation was unexpected. They had come to quarantine the family and neighbours of a patient who has already recovered. We started asking them for details but they were confused and backed off. There was no major ruckus.”
{{/usCountry}}Local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator Krishna Patil said that there were no more positive cases in their lane apart from those who tested positive in the first week of June. “Why was there a delay in quarantining the high-risk contacts? There is no point in quarantining contacts after the patients have recovered.”