TIRUCHY: In the midst of surging COVID-19 cases, the Tiruchy City Corporation faces a new challenge with many patients who test positive providing fake contact information. Officials say they are facing difficulties in identifying and isolating at least 40 per cent of the cases as patients fear social stigma and isolation.
Tiruchy district has been witnessing a steady rise in cases for the last few days. With the majority of these cases within the city limits, the civic body has been taking several initiatives including implementation of containment zones and contact tracing.
People who undertake swab tests at the government hospital are requested to write down their residential address and mobile number in a form. These are the only contact details available with the hospital for people who give samples.
"During testing, these patients write addresses very vaguely but give correct mobile numbers. As a result, we are able to call the patient as soon as the test result arrives and ask for their detailed address so they can be transferred to the hospital. Several patients intentionally give wrong addresses and delay their isolation," said an official involved with the civic body's COVID team.
Citing an example of a patient in Ariyamangalam zone on June 27, the official said, "When we called the patient, he said that he was at home. However, when we visited his house, the doors were locked and there was no one present there. After that, using the police and information from the neighbourhood, we traced him after four hours at another house 1 km away and transferred him to the hospital."
Similarly, in a case at K Abishekapuram, officials had to wait for more than two hours around the patient's house as he left the premises expecting their arrival.
"The patient after giving all the information about his location, disappeared from the neighbourhood. Only after two hours, expecting that we would have left, he arrived. It was only then that we got hold of him and took him to the hospital immediately. They do not understand that they are putting other people at risk," said another official co-ordinating the tracing at the K Abishekapuram ward.
Speaking on the issue, S Sivasubramaniam, Commissioner, Tiruchy City Corporation, said, "We are looking at this issue seriously. To avoid these delaying tactics by the public, we have proposed to collect Aadhaar details at the time of testing. We request the public to co-ordinate with the civic body to fight the pandemic."