Double blow for infected family as rumours go viral on WhatsApp

Nithya.Mandyam@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru: A 25-year-old analyst with an e-commerce firm and his family of four in southeast Bengaluru are aghast at being stigmatised and facing innuendoes after he, his father and mother tested positive for Covid-19.

The analyst’s father, a 45-year-old patient of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) and resident of Mangammana Palya, tested positive on Tuesday and the mother and son were confirmed to have been infected. The daughter’s test result is awaited. Media reports inking lthem to the cluster Covid-19 cases in neighbouring Hongasandra were deeply disturbing. The first patient in Hongasandra is suspected to have contracted the coronavirus during a visit to a scrap dealer in Mangammana Palya and BBMP is searching for him.

“Once my father’s positive status was out, I was flooded with WhatsApp messages from friends and neighbours asking me whether he was the scrapdealer who had infected Hongasandra residents, ” the analyst told TOI. He added: “I’m not a scrap dealer. My father is a goods vehicle driver and had not stepped out of the house for a month. My mother is a homemaker. These people are spreading rumours about me and the family. Neither I nor anyone from my family have any connection with the Hongasandra cases except that we stay in the same Bommanahalli zone. My parents and I have not interacted with anyone from that area.”

On Tuesday evening, they heard they were positive. He said: “Ammi and I immediately got admitted to Victoria Hosptial. People need to understand that anyone can contract the virus. The prejudice against a patient is disturbing. People look at patients like criminals or worse.”

The analyst’s family stays on the first floor of a building and another couple live on the ground floor. They confirmed the Mangammana Palya positive cases had no contacts other than the family staying on the ground floor. BBMP health officials said: “The scrapdealer may be healthy. Else, by now he would have gone to a hospital and we would have known.”

GUARDING AGAINST RISKS:

Many pockets in the city have been sealed in the past month