This Noida Covid-19 officer can’t hold his newborn

Snehil.Sinha@timesgroup.com

Noida  07.04.2020

: It’s a girl! With the message came overpowering emotion. Rajeev Rai was ecstatic, but also relieved after quarantining himself in the guest room of his house for nearly three weeks so as to not endanger his pregnant wife and their eight-year-old daughter. He also had to give up on that special fatherhood moment of cradling the newborn in his arms. That’s how it will be for a while.

Rai is the field officer leading the massive containment exercise to check the spread of the novel coronavirus infection in Noida, which has UP’s most Covid-19 cases so far (58). Each time a person tests positive, the containment protocol demands extensive sanitisation of the neighbourhood and sealing it for a period of time. Rai oversees this and, with cases in Noida surging in the last two weeks, his field visits have only gone up. So at home, he has distanced himself — staying confined to a guest room and the living area to avoid any contact with his family.

Moments after he saw his newborn daughter — from near the door of his wife’s hospital room — on Monday afternoon, Rai had to go back to work. He returned to the hospital late evening to savour the moment, standing three metres away from his wife and daughter, on the doctor’s advice.

A beaming Rai later told TOI he would continue to quarantine himself and not go anywhere near his wife and child till his current task is completed. “It’s one of the greatest days of my life. Both of them need to be in hospital for a few more days under observation. They are already susceptible to infections and I don’t want to increase the risk any further. It definitely would have been great to hold my girl and be by their side. But duty calls and we all have work to do,” said Rai, who otherwise holds the post of subdivisional magistrate (Dadri).

Full report on www.toi.in

MISSING FATHERHOOD MOMENT: Rajeev Rai saw his newborn daughter from near the door of his wife’s hospital room, standing 3m away on doctor’s advice