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Phasing out of virus shutdown

Panic grips people afresh


Bangladeshpost
Published : 30 May 2020 08:42 PM | Updated : 07 Sep 2020 03:12 PM

Amdadul Haque

People are now in a fresh panic over the phasing out of the Covid-19 shutdown at the time deaths and transmission from the virus continue to show an upward trend.

As of Saturday, a total of 610 people had died from the coronavirus since the country’s first death was confirmed. With only one day to go before the shutdown ends, Bangladesh recorded 1,764 new Covid-19 cases.

The total number of coronavirus infections rises to 44,608 in the country with this. Some 9,987 samples were tested across the country in 24 hours. Besides, 28 more deaths from the virus were reported on Saturday.

On the other hand, the coronavirus infection will increase in the next two weeks as the migration from Eid-centric villages to cities and from cities to villages increases. Even before this, the lockdown was relaxed and the garments, hat-bazaars and mosques were reopened. Therefore, people are worried about the future of coronavirus infection in the country.

People are talking about maintaining social distancing and personal hygiene to stop COVID-19 outbreak, but it increases my worry, Rakib, a rickshaw passenger, told Bangladesh Post.

However, millions of people like Rakib are living a worried life over the coronavirus situation. For a city as dense as Dhaka, maintaining social distancing - as suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) to stop the coronavirus spread - seems like a chimera.

A man named Noor Muhammad said, “Everything is being reopened. How can I protect myself in this situation?”

However, the shutdown is phasing out with people returning to normal life from June 1. This will naturally increase the infection. This horrible picture will come to the fore in the next one week. In addition, the entire country is still at risk of infection, according to the Department of Health.

Meanwhile, trains are starting from today (Sunday) and the people from different districts are coming to the capital. As such a large number of people are restarting to move around the country, and with it, comes the panic among the common people.

The government has decided to conditionally lift the nationwide shutdown from today (Sunday), granting road transport, water transport and rail to operate with a limited number of passengers while ensuring health guidelines.

The State Minister for Public Administration, Farhad Hossain told Bangladesh Post “We have decided to withdraw the nationwide lockdown on a limited scale to resume the country’s economic activities like in most of the European and Western countries.”

The railway ministry, on the other hand, has resumed services of 8 intercity trains from today (Sunday) with half the number of passengers the trains can carry.

Experts, however, have expressed concern that the move may exacerbate the coronavirus outbreak in the overcrowded nation of nearly 165 million people.

Medicine specialist, Dr Zakir Hussain told Bangladesh Post that any breach of social distancing rules and health guidelines due to the partial easing of the lockdown “may cause the outbreak to get out of control very rapidly.”

“During the two-month-long lockdown, almost 95% of the people have become accustomed to Covid-19 health rules,” he said.

However, on Thursday the Cabinet Division issued a circular saying that public road transports, passenger water vessels and trains could run on a limited scale with fixed numbers of passengers maintaining the health safety guideline between May 31 and June 15.

On March 25, the authorities imposed a ban on the movement of all public transports, including railways, waterways and domestic flights, and on March 26 it imposed a ban on all public road transports.

Mohakhali Inter-District Bus Terminal owners’ association chairman, Abul Kalam told Bangladesh Post that it would take a few days to resume full services as some of the buses needed repair.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested ‘partial or complete lockdown’, the reality being Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries of the world. So putting any city or the country under complete lockdown is very difficult and impossible.

Under these circumstances, along with forcing people to stay at home it is also essential to motivate and awaken them for creating a willingness in their mind to follow the directives for the sake of themselves from this deadly virus. The psychology of religion and motivated behavior can play a great role in this regard.

Director General of Health Department, Dr Abul Kalam Azad told Bangladesh Post In the current situation, all directions have to be followed to fight against coronavirus. Otherwise, the coronavirus will turn out of control.”

In this context, a professor of BSMMU, preferring anonymity, said, “lockdown has been relaxed in many countries. If you go out in this situation, you have to follow the hygiene rules. There is no alternative. Wash your hands with soap after a while. Do not touch the face. Only then can we protect ourselves and our families from the spread of this disease.”

However, the withdrawal of the shutdown is suicidal, which may push the country into a prolonged vicious cycle of virus transmission, experts feared. They stressed ramping up testing to flatten the curve and see success achieved by countries such as South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore in aggressive testing and contact tracing.

To prevent the situation from deteriorating further, health guidelines must be enforced strictly in reopened markets, factories and other activities, experts insisted.