–Lahore DC says people are kept at hospitals to contain spread of virus
LAHORE: As Lahore sees a rise in the number of coronavirus cases, the tactics used by the Punjab government, particularly the forced isolation of people tested positive for the virus, to keep the disease at bay is creating fear among people.
According to reports, when a positive case is confirmed, the teams of district administration and health department along with police coerce them to go to the isolation centres.
Saihaam Khan, a resident of Lahore, said her aunt was portrayed as a criminal after she tested positive for coronavirus that many of us will contract in the coming days. He said her aunt had no travel history, but after she was found coronavirus positive, police showed up at her door and forced to go to the hospital.
“The media sensationalized the news and treated her as if she was a criminal,” he claimed and added one of the male nurses even tried to take a picture of her in the ambulance.
Rejecting the reports of her international travel, he claimed that the patient had no travel history for the past eight months nor did she host a gathering at a Lahore cafe.
In these dark times, we should spread a message of love and positivity rather than of hate and shame,” Saihaam said alluding to the social media posts against the patient.
Another resident, Khurram Shahzad, said, police shouldn’t harass people tested positive for the virus. He added that it was the responsibility of everyone to visit a doctor in case of the emergence of the symptoms of the disease.
Attasha Hafeez criticised the approach used by the Punjab government to contain the disease and said only serious patients were taken to the hospitals across the world and people with mild symptoms were told to stay at home.
“We have a shortage of ventilators, beds, doctors and testing kits,” he said, adding that only the critical cases should visit hospitals and the government must run an awareness campaign.
Deputy Commissioner Danish Afzal defended the measures and said the patients were isolated at hospitals because the government wanted to minimise the spread of the virus. “People insist that they want to stay at home but we have no way of knowing whether they would self-isolate themselves or have social interaction and spread the contagion,” he said while giving reasons for hospitalisation.
“We are not harassing the people as our teams have to wait outside the houses of the confirmed patients and request them to go to a hospital,” he said, adding the people found positive for coronavirus were obstructing measures to curb the virus by not reporting their cases.
