Mon district’s strategy in handling returnees pays off

Our Correspondent
Kohima, June 18 (EMN): Mon district administration’s decision to make returnees undergo 28 days of institutional quarantine and mandatory testing has paid off as the move has helped contain a possible community spread of the Covid-19 in the district. A total of 21 returnees have been tested positive for the virus in Mon so far.

Speaking to Eastern Mirror, Deputy Commissioner of Mon Thavaseelan K said: “Had we not adopted our own district policy to keep all returnees in institutional quarantine, we would have triggered community spread in the district.”

It may be mentioned that the Chennai returnees, who reached Dimapur on May 22, spent 11 days at quarantine centres in Dimapur before being sent off to Mon on June 2 after they were tested negative. However, on the seventh day after reaching the district, the returnees were tested positive.

The DC informed that when samples were collected and tested positive in TrueNat, it was sent to ICMR, Dibrugarh for further confirmation and the test results came out positive again after the returnees underwent 20 days of quarantine.

The DC informed that the 21 positive patients were shifted to Covid-19 care centre and not Covid-19 hospital as they were asymptomatic and also due to limited manpower in the hospital.

“The idea to delay the activation of Covid-19 hospital is to manage well the emergency services as long as we have only asymptomatic cases who can be treated in a Covid-19 care centre and also in accordance with the ministry of Health And Family Welfare guidelines to treat asymptomatic persons in the care centre instead of Covid-19 hospital,” he said.

He stated that the district Covid-19 task force, Empowered Group, Konyak civil societies, Churches and elected members were told to institute quarantine policy along with mandatory testing for everyone.

On the video that went viral on social media platforms, accusing the authority for the delay in separating the positive and negative persons, the DC told this newspaper that due to heavy rain on that particular day, they decided to wait till the rain abate.

If the returnees got drench and catch cold, it would result in showing symptoms and the authority would be compelled to alarm activation of Covid-19 hospital, which the DC said, would invite backlash for denying the people and result in a severe crisis.

“The group had near-zero social distancing as per our observations from the day they arrived. Moreover, they have been staying together for 20 days. You can fathom how much social distancing would be in a group where everyone had tested negative in the first test,” he stated.

“Since we follow different policy, we were able to contain all positive cases within quarantine centre in the containment zone,” he maintained.

Informing that test result of Bengaluru returnees are awaited, he expressed confidence that the district would be able to tackle the situation in the same manner.

As the district has the highest number of returnees next to Dimapur and with facilities in the headquarters getting saturated, the DC said the authority has no other option but to transport the returnees from Kerala, consisting of 47 male and 111 female, from Mon town to Wakching, about 21 km in a dumper truck.

‘Due to deplorable road condition, we had to arrange for dumper/ tipper trucks. We constructed a bamboo top and covered the truck with tarpaulin. We put in several layers of foam bases so that our returnees could sit down comfortably,’ he said. However, he added that they would manage to transport the returnees to the quarantine centre at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) Wakching safe.

The district authority had explained the situation to the returnees and sought for their forgiveness, he said, adding that MLA of 42 A/C Wakching YM Yollow was aware of the situation and claimed to have empathised with them.

The DC maintained that political leaders cutting across party lines are collectively fighting the Covid-19 pandemic along with civil societies, churches, administration, police, frontline workers and citizens.

“All of us here in Mon are doing our best in taking care of our people coming back home from outside the state,” he added.