Imperfect prescription

Experts question the efficacy of measures like home quarantine and argue that blindly following WHO guidelines will continue to drive up the number of Covid deaths in India

- RABI BANERJEE

SWAPAN GHOSH chose to run a small sweet shop in Kolkata, although he was from Singur in Hooghly district, one of the most fertile regions in West Bengal. The 55-year-old, however, had to shut his shop and return to his village following the nationwide lockdown imposed on March 26 to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. He was back in business a few weeks later, after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee permitted the reopening of shops, especially in Kolkata.

When the unlock process began, Kolkata residents perhaps let down their guard. From pakora joints to paani puri stalls, all shops were crowded. Ghosh’s shop, too, was packed. A few days after reopening his shop, he started having intermittent fever, cough and cold. On June 30, a local doctor asked him to get tested for Covid-19. Ghosh got himself tested at a Covid-19 hospital on July 2 and died the next day, before the results came. As the hospital did not issue a death certificate, his body could not be cremated. As the morgues were full, it was kept in his shop. Corporation officials took the decomposed body away for cremation after his test results came back positive. Ghosh’s worried customers are now trying to get themselves tested.

Back in Singur, Ghosh’s family has no clue about how he contracted the infection. His wife and two children are inconsolable. “We will help the family financially if required. They are already getting free ration,” said Mahadeb Das, block president of the Trinamool Congress. He said infections were going up in Singur. “All are caused by migrant workers. We are finding it hard to stop the disease from spreading,” he said.