UK returnees violate quarantine rules, attend birthday parties

Hyderabad: Surveillance officials of the health department have found that in 15 cases, those who have returned from United Kingdom but tested negative for the Coronavirus went out for social gatherings. The protocol is that those who have returned and tested negative must quarantine themselves at home for seven days.

Of them, 10 persons were in Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and Medchal Malkajgiri districts, who have been moved to the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences and Nature Cure Hospital.

 

A family of three members was found attending birthday parties and inviting people at home for a social gathering. Surveillance officials found this out and asked them to quarantine themselves at the Nature Cure Hospital.

A senior health official said, “People are not taking this as seriously as before. The people are no longer scared. The family had returned from the UK and people were inviting them over. They were not willing to stay at home. For that reason we had to take a strict step of keeping them in institutional care.”

 

In another case, a young student who had been kept at TIMS wanted to leave immediately for a wedding in the family. The student was counselled to stay put.

A senior health official on condition of anonymity said, “The last time, there was complete cooperation. People willingly gave inputs of whom they had met and contact tracing was easy. Now they are not willing to talk. Not willing to share information. They also do not want their status to be known to others.”

This is causing a lot of problems as tracing people who may have come in contact with UK returnees and alerting them has become a challenge.

 

With the new strain from the United Kingdom, officials state that people know every safety protocol but follow them only based on their convenience. If they want to go out, attend parties, social gatherings and family functions there is no stopping them as they believe that a few medicines will make them fine.

Due to this reason the officials find that their counselling is having little impact and those who are constantly violating the protocols are being shifted to institutional care for a few days.

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