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Covid-19 fear: Family in Andhra Pradesh locks itself for 15 months
The police on Wednesday rescued the members of the family, which confined itself to a tent house for nearly 15 months in the state’s Kadali village due to fears of getting infected by Covid-19, news agency ANI reported on Thursday.
AndAs the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic struck the world last year, the most crucial factor which governments and health authorities spoke about was to stay home and not venture outdoors without any reason.
A family in Andhra Pradesh took the advise very seriously. The police on Wednesday rescued the members of the family, which confined itself to a tent house for nearly 15 months in the state’s Kadali village due to fears of getting infected by Covid-19, news agency ANI reported on Thursday.
“The family of Chuttugalla Benny, his wife, and two children, have been residing here. They were afraid of Corona and locked themselves in the house for almost the past 15 months. They confined themselves to the house and locked it from inside,” Kadali village’s sarpanch Choppala Gurunath told ANI.
The issue came into light when a village volunteer visited the tent house to get the thumb impression of the family members for allowing a housing plot for them under a government scheme. Upon refusal of the family members to come out, the volunteer apprised village sarpanch and others about the situation.
“Their matter came to light when our village volunteer went to their house to get their thumb impression as they were allotted a housing site. When he called them, they refused to come out by saying that they would die if they came out. The volunteer had informed us of the matter, and we rushed to this place,” village sarpanch Gurunath said, adding the family was immediately rushed to a government hospital with the help of police and villagers and is currently under treatment.
Gurunath pointed out the family members even attended the nature calls (feeling the need to urinate or defecate) inside their tent house. They (family) would have died if they continued to stay inside for two or three more days.
Andhra Pradesh has so far logged 1,946,749 cases and 13,197 deaths due to the Covid-19 disease. On Wednesday, the state reported 2,527 new cases, 2,412 recoveries and 19 deaths. The active cases have marginally increased to 23,939 while the Covid-19 positivity rate is at 8.2 per cent.
The state government on Wednesday extended the ongoing Covid-19 curfew till July 30 from 10 pm to 6 am daily. The decision to extend the curfew was taken “after a thorough review of the Covid-19 situation and keeping in view the decline in the number of positive cases,” principal secretary (Health) Anil Kumar Singhal said in an order on Wednesday.
(With ANI inputs)
