Life on the front lines: Three of a family infected, fourth in quarantine

Each member stayed in a separate room at their four-bedroom house in Model Town Police Colony; they paid their domestic help and car cleaner for the month, and asked them to stay home during the lockdown.

When the lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19 was announced on March 24, a family of four in north-west Delhi’s Model Town was worried. A policeman, a nurse, and their young sons -- they knew they faced a high risk of infection because of their jobs.

Three members of the family — the couple and their younger son (21) — tested positive for the virus between April 11 and 13. For the last week, the three have been confined to a room at the Lok Nayak Hospital.The couple’s 23-year-old son is in home-quarantine. (Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

Even as the nurse continued to work, the family went to great lengths to ensure that they did not infect each other, their colleagues, their neighbours, or their house help. Each member stayed in a separate room at their four-bedroom house in Model Town Police Colony; they paid their domestic help and car cleaner for the month, and asked them to stay home during the lockdown; the 52-year-old policeman, who had undergone a heart surgery months earlier, took his pending leave to stay home; and the family cut off all physical contact with their neighbours.

“It was an exemplary act. They went out of their way to keep their neighbours away, not to save themselves but to protect the others,” said Vijayanta Arya, deputy commissioner of police (north-west).

But despite their efforts, the disease got to them. Three members of the family — the couple and their younger son (21) — tested positive for the virus between April 11 and 13. For the last week, the three have been confined to a room at the Lok Nayak Hospital.The couple’s 23-year-old son is in home-quarantine.

The woman, an assistant nursing superintendent at Lok Nayak hospital, went to work every day, and knew that if her family was affected, she would be the source. “There was no public conveyance from home to hospital, so my husband would drive me home every day. I knew that once I was infected, he would get it too,” the nurse said.

She began showing symptoms in early April. “My nursing colleagues were regularly serving Covid-19 patients without being equipped with personal protective equipment (PPE). I must have contracted the disease from them,” she said, even as the authorities are unclear about the source of her infection.

She was hospitalised on April 9, and two days later, an RT-PCR test confirmed that she was Covid-19 positive. The family of four was moved to Lok Nayak Hospital. On April 13, her husband and 21-year-old son tested positive as well. However, their older son tested negative and was sent home.

“We think he didn’t get the infection because he has better immunity and we ensured we avoided contact with him. But my younger son began cooking for us once I fell unwell. He would serve me food and collect my utensils. Maybe, that is how he got infected,” she said.

The three was allotted a separate small room at the hospital. The proximity at least allows them to talk to one another.

“We are so close to each other, and yet, so far. In the hospital room, our beds are at a distance of a metre from each other. We cannot watch a film together on one mobile phone. We cannot exchange phones or share our chargers. Even our meals arrive separately,” said the 52-year-old assistant sub-inspector (ASI) with the Delhi Police’s provisioning and logistics department.

In the hospital room, the couple spends all day on the phone — either attending to calls from relatives or calling up their son at home. The younger son spends time watching films on the phone. But the couple says their main concern is their son back home.

“My son may be able to handle the home-quarantine emotionally, but he is in isolation and staying alone, at the end of the day. When relatives call us, we ask them to call up my son after disconnecting the call,” the policeman said.

Once in a while, the family encounters a familiar face, as the nurses attending them know the woman as a senior . They say that the presence of acquaintances around them gives them a “feeling of being with an extended family”.

“I tell them that I’ll join them as soon as I am discharged and allowed to serve,” said the nurse.