The islanders of Minicoy in Lakshadweep allege vendetta on the part of the Union Territory administration in hurriedly shifting scores of COVID-19 patients to a first-line treatment centre (FLTC) without prior notice in the dead of the night on Wednesday.
“The COVID testing system on the islands is essentially in total disarray as results of RT-PCR take up to a week to arrive. This is because only Kavaratti has a testing facility. When the results of RT-PCR of several people arrive, some who had tested negative in antigen tests also received positive results, leading to a lot of confusion. However, it was decided that since a few days had lapsed after the collection of samples, it was thought best to ask those tested positive to continue to stay at home. But in the night, officials, the Deputy Collector and incident commander specifically, said the District Collector had ordered an immediate shifting of the fresh batch of patients to the treatment facility. This was in bad taste, but the officials were helpless as they had to comply with the order that came late,” Muneer Manikfan, a medical doctor and vice president of the Dweep panchayat at Minicoy, told The Hindu.
Several islanders expressed anger at the way the patients were allegedly herded into vehicles and transported. Some said there was not a woman officer present to shift women and children.
The COVID-19 situation in Minicoy has gone from bad to worse with decision taken to enforce a total lockdown for seven days from Friday. There were 205 active cases, with over 110 patients admitted to the FLTC as on Thursday. The island has had over 500 cases.
Meanwhile, in its maiden meeting in Kochi on Wednesday, the Save Laksahdweep Forum decided to launch units in all islands before June 5 and to observe a 12-hour hunger strike (6 a.m. to 6 p.m.) on June 7 to protest the ‘anti-island’ draft legislations being pushed by the adminisitration and seeking the immediate recall of the administrator.
Thousands of people barring patients and those under treatment across the islands will take part in the hunger strike. The forum also decided to give a concrete shape to the move to seek legal recourse to the issue of bad legislations. The legal cell is tasked with doing the groundwork for this, said P.P. Mohammed Faizal, MP, from Lakshadweep.
