More on Covid-19

BENGALURU/NEW DELHI: Padarayanapura area in Bengaluru turned into a garrison on Monday, hours after mobs attacked health care workers in the area who visited the area to isolate contacts of Covid positive patients, with hundreds of policemen, including gun-wielding Garuda force personnel, stationed at vantage points across the ward.Police arrested 54 people including a woman in connection with Sunday night’s violence. The entire ward – which has thrown up 19 positive cases – was declared a containment zone and residents are barred from stepping out of their houses.Meanwhile in Delhi, adopting a tough approach towards reports of violations of lockdown guidelines in Covid-19 hotspots and attacks on medical personnel, the home ministry has deployed teams to make on-the-spot assessments and named Indore, Mumbai, Pune, Jaipur, Kolkata and seven other places in West Bengal as areas of serious concern with regard to spread of the disease.The Indian Medical Association demanded a special central law on violence against medicos and hospitals by an ordinance.IMA also decided to observe 'white alert' on April 22.Trouble erupted on Sunday evening in Bengaluru when a team of health officials, including doctors and Asha workers, Arafat Nagar to take 58 contacts of positive patients to institutional quarantine.The attack has spurred the state government to decide on promulgating an ordinance, based on the Uttar Pradesh and Kerala model, to protect police and frontline health workers fighting Covid-19.And, it is not just in Karnataka. Frontline workers – policemen, health staff, municipal workers – are facing the wrath of people scared of being taken into quarantine. Somewhere else, they are being targeted for trying to shut down overcrowded shops or, stopping people from venturing out. Many are being driven out by landlords for being in forefront in dealing with Covid positive patients and suspects.The Bengaluru mayhem followed two assaults that rocked the country – medical workers attacked while on duty in UP’s Moradabad district and Nihangs chopping off hand of a policeman in Patiala in Punjab.In states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Telangana, Punjab mob fury is singeing those on duty.If around 28 cases of assaults on police personnel have been reported in Vidarbha in Maharashtra, including four in Nagpur, till Sunday since the enforcement of lockdown began in the state, in Hyderabad, police arrested two brothers for assaulting a post-graduate medical student at Osmania General Hospital on April 15. The accused were family members of a man quarantined on suspicion of having Covid-19 symptoms. The man’s test samples later turned up positive.At least six cases of attack on health professionals and police personnel have been reported from Bihar ever since nationwide lockdown was invoked. The latest assault was reported from West Champaran district where a team from a primary health centre had to face the wrath of the villagers on Sunday.Similar attacks were reported from Aurangabad, Nalanda, Nawada, East Champaran, Madhubani , Supaul and Munger districts.In Jharkhand, protests erupted on April 13 night in Ranchi when a team of district administration and police officials were attacked and ambulances were vandalized during their visit to shift three positive patients from area to COVID-19 hospital and their family members to quarantine centre.Even burials are becoming hotbeds of trouble. Public gathered with sticks and stones at the Velangadu crematorium and burial ground in Anna Nagar in Chennai on Sunday, protesting against the burial of Dr Simon Hercules , a city based neurosurgeon who died due to Covid-19 at a hospital in the City outskirts, on Sunday. His mortal remains were eventually laid to rest with police protection.(With inputs from Chandigarh, Ranchi, Patna, Jaipur, Lucknow, Nagpur & Hyderabad)