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Kolkata: Recovered COVID-19 patient wants India to understand severity of virus

When people in the neighbourhood realised that Biswas's father was in self-isolation, they entered the premises with police officers, accusing her father of hiding her in the bungalow.

coronavirus, coronavirus cases Kolkata, coronavirus patient recovered Kolkata, Monami Biswas, coronavirus latest updates, coronavirus bengal news, COVID-19, Kolkata news, indian express Monami Biswas takes a selfie in her room at her Habra residence after her recovery and discharge from Beliaghata ID Hospital. She is in 14-day mandatory home quarantine. (Photo: Monami Biswas)

Of the 12 people who recovered from COVID-19 among 38 active cases in West Bengal, 23-year-old Habra resident Monami Biswas is one.

A masters student who enrolled at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom in January this year, Biswas does not know where and how she got infected, but learnt that she had contracted coronavirus within hours of landing in Kolkata in March.

Biswas was discharged from Beliaghata ID Hospital on March 31 after recovery and was put into home quarantine for 14 days.

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“My first question to the doctors was, ‘will I die?'” recalled Biswas, in an interview with The Indian Express. “But they told me to think of it like a viral fever and common cold.”

By the first week of March, coronavirus cases had been detected across the United Kingdom, including in Scotland, prompting educational institutions to close down for public health and safety. Foreign students who could afford it, began booking flights to their home countries at inflated prices. Biswas said she decided to return to Kolkata after hearing other students on campus discussing how the UK may be shut down in the coming months due to the virus. She booked a flight to Kolkata for the very next day on March 18.

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“I was fine in Scotland and did not experience any symptoms. On March 18, at Heathrow airport, there was a huge rush. Maybe I got exposed to the virus there. In Scotland and at Heathrow airport, people were roaming around without any masks.”

Biswas told The Indian Express that she faced difficulties procuring surgical face masks in Scotland and had a box of 20 delivered from India, only to leave the UK within the next few days.

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Biswas said she did not experience any symptoms during the approximately nine-hour flight from London to Mumbai. While some passengers on board wore masks for the entire duration of the flight, including the passenger next to Biswas, many others did not. “After landing in Mumbai, I felt feverish and took a paracetamol. I also had a migraine headache, but I thought my body was adjusting to the warmer climate.”

Biswas is not clear why thermal scanners at Mumbai airport failed to detect a rise in her body temperature, but said that airport doctors conducting the health screening advised her to go into home quarantine in Kolkata.

Walking through the international and domestic terminals of Mumbai airport on March 19, she caught a flight to Kolkata a few hours later. Upon landing, Biswas said she informed doctors at Kolkata airport about her high temperatures that thermal scanners had been unable to detect. They recommended she visit Beliaghata ID Hospital on her own, because according to protocol, airport doctors can only authorise the use of designated ambulances to transport patients to the hospital when they are symptomatic.

“My father and driver came to pick me up and took me to ID Hospital straight away,” said Biswas. Soon, Biswas began feeling unwell. Doctors at the Beliaghata hospital took down details of her travel history and immediately admitted her to the facility. “I had read WHO guidelines and the doctors said there was nothing to worry about. They said I had done a good job by going straight to the hospital.”

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Doctors also instructed her father and driver to isolate themselves immediately. Biswas tested positive for coronavirus shortly after.

Also Read | Lockdown stories from a Kolkata slum, far away from social distancing

In Habra, Biswas’s mother, brother and grandmother were informed and her father did not return home, choosing to instead isolate at a bungalow the family owns, a 20-minute drive from their primary residence. When people in the neighbourhood realised that Biswas’s father was in self-isolation, they entered the premises with police officers, accusing her father of hiding her in the bungalow.

“They accused me of roaming around the city. They went to the house where my father was in isolation and the police came and interrogated him. The people in the neighbourhood refused to listen and insulted my father,” said Biswas.

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The interrogation did not stop there. While Biswas was in isolation at Beliaghata ID Hospital, she said that the police, health ministry officials and the Habra municipality head contacted her on her mobile phone that doctors had allowed her to use, to question her about her travel history following complaints from neighbours. The next day, her father and driver were tested and put into isolation at the state quarantine center in Rajarhat, but both tested negative for the disease.

Responding to reports of government hospital facilities for coronavirus patients across the country receiving flak for sub-par facilities and a lack of proper medical equipment, Biswas said she witnessed Beliaghata ID Hospital put emphasis on sanitation and medical precautions.

“They threw away everything. I could not bring any belongings into the facility with me. Bedsheets, blankets, everything I used was thrown away,” said Biswas, adding this included the clothes she wore during her flight to Kolkata, that she was still wearing when she entered the hospital. An exception was made for her spectacles, mobile phone and headphones that were throughly scrubbed with sanitiser before she was allowed to use them inside the hospital.

Having witnessed operations in person, Biswas said that the isolation facilities and the treatment for coronavirus are not tales of horror that many misunderstand it to be.

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Unable to physically meet her family and friends, doctors and medical staff were integral support systems for her while she recovered, encouraging and motivating her, Biswas told The Indian Express. “Hats off to the doctors who took care of me. It was the first time that I felt that doctors are god,” she said. The four doctors who helped cure her are Dr Yogiraj Ray, Dr Shekhar, Dr Rajshekhar and Dr Koushik at Beliaghata ID Hospital.

While regular meals were provided to her by the hospital, there were times when she was hungry between meals, craving snacks from outside. Despite her treatment for coronavirus, the hospital did not put her on a special diet.
“The doctors and medical staff purchased biscuits, cakes and chocolates for me from outside. My food in the hospital had less salt, so they would teasingly say, ‘check Swiggy, I would have ordered it for you, but there is a lockdown’.”

Many conversations between Biswas and her medical supervisors occurred on text message and over the phone, except when her vitals needed to be checked and doctors would enter her isolation room in full protective gear. Along with regular checks of her vitals, there would also be daily throat swabs and urine and stool tests to check the progression of her recovery.

Just two doors down her room, when she was transferred into an isolation room after testing postive, she had seen West Bengal’s first coronavirus patient, a student at Oxford University, being treated. Both Biswas and the hospital staff had quickly become aware of the criticism and abuse that the student and his family had faced on social media.

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A word of advice from doctors included suggesting that Biswas deactivate her social media accounts to reduce the possibility of similar harassment. “I deactivated my Facebook account for a while, but restarted it again when I couldn’t control myself,” said Biswas, referring to a few social media users who had initially found her online and targeted her for her illness. “The doctors told me not be afraid. I never felt afraid in the hospital.”

Two weeks in isolation and recovery were spent watching movies on Netflix and finishing university assignments on her phone. The 14-day process of recovery was slow, but Biswas could see how she was recovering a little every day, with her body temperature and vitals fluctuating. “I learnt that my last test was negative because a family member told me over the phone that reporters were saying so on news channels. Then I called my doctor, who said he did not have my medical reports as yet. After 11 pm at night, the doctor called and said the reports were negative. I was eating cashew nuts when reports of my last test came negative,” Biswas said.

Doctors at Beliaghata ID Hospital conducted two more tests for coronavirus before they cleared her for discharge. To prevent the spread of infections, Biswas was not permitted to remove anything from the hospital. Her spectacles, mobile phone and headphones were once again thoroughly sanitised. She was made to wear medical scrubs before she left because her clothes had been discarded as a precautionary measure by the hospital.

An ambulance from Beliaghata ID Hospital dropped Biswas home and she was able to see her family for the first time in weeks. Physical contact of any kind with her family members, however, was not permitted. “I got down from the ambulance and the Habra municipal head and Habra police were standing there to welcome me. They said that I had done a good job. My mother, uncle and my cousin were also there,” said Biswas.

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coronavirus, coronavirus cases Kolkata, coronavirus patient recovered Kolkata, Monami Biswas, coronavirus latest updates, coronavirus bengal news, COVID-19, Kolkata news, indian express Monami Biswas’s view from the glass windows of her isolation room at Beliaghata ID Hospital. Medical staff in protective wear can be seen walking past Biswas’s room. (Photo: Monami Biswas)

Precautions for public health and welfare did not end there. Of her own accord, Biswas walked up three floors of stairs instead of taking the elevator. “My mother and thammi (grandmother) cried on seeing me,” said Biswas. Relegated to a private room and attached bathroom, in home isolation, Biswas has been working on her university assignments and has not come in physical contact with her family members since.

On April 4, her father and driver were released from quarantine and she was only able to speak to her father from a distance, cloistered in her room, while he stood a few meters away.

While residents in her apartment building haven’t discriminated against Biswas and her family in any way as yet, she is still reluctant to go out onto a small balcony attached to her room, because she does not know how her neighbours will react. “I don’t know what they will think. They might stare at me, so I don’t go out into the balcony. My mother said they will look at me in a strange manner,” said Biswas.

On April 15, the proposed end of the nationwide lockdown coincides with the end of her home quarantine, when she will have to make another trip to Beliaghata ID Hospital to get throat swab tests and urine and stool tests for coronavirus.

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For now, the entire family is taking precautions to stay indoors. Relatives leave bags of groceries and necessities outside their apartment so they need not venture out till Biswas’s quarantine is over and her final tests come negative.
Kolkata Police officers have also advised the family to stay indoors for public health precautions. Her doctors at Beliaghata ID Hospital are in constant touch with her over the phone, asking about her health while she awaits the end of her home quarantine. She does not know when she will return to the UK or even when her classes will resume. For now, Biswas is focusing on her recovery.

While Biswas is still weak and recuperating from her illness, she thinks about people in the neighbourhood who harassed her father when she had first been daignosed with coronavirus. “People are stigmatising patients and are creating fear and panic. I didn’t want to spread coronavirus and that is why I got tested immediately after leaving the airport. I think the people in the neighbourhood should not have done these things,” said Biswas.

“The people who harassed my father and entered the house with the police were not wearing face masks. If they were so concerned about coronavirus, it would have been better if they had taken precautions,” said Biswas.

The lockdown is necessary, she believes, to curb the spread of the virus, but many Kolkata residents do not seem to understand the severity of it, she says. “This is a deadly virus. The minute I left the hospital room, the staff cleaned it from top to bottom. My friend is working in a bank and she says customers come to deposit Rs 100. One customer told her he did it because police are letting people visit only banks during the lockdown, and he wanted to go out. The bank has now become a place for adda for some,” said Biswas.

On her way home from the hospital, Biswas passed a local bazaar where crowds had gathered for shopping as if it were a normal day. “I know of some people who are going to the bazaar every day instead of once a week. Many people feel that because nobody in their family has been infected as yet, nothing will happen to them. The virus is going to spread very badly,” she said.

First uploaded on: 06-04-2020 at 00:53 IST
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