Covid is spreading like wildfire in Calcutta and other parts of Bengal but safety protocols have gone for a toss because of the way a large section of people is behaving, said hospital officials, doctors and public health experts.

People without masks is a common sight on roads and at malls and markets across Calcutta. But there are others whose behaviour can have much larger implications. The Telegraph lists some behaviours that can fan the pandemic:

Covid-positive flier

About three weeks ago, a man in his 50s who works as an executive at a private firm in Delhi had lost his sense of smell and taste, clear symptoms of Covid.

The man took a flight from Delhi to return home to Calcutta without getting tested. A day after landing in Calcutta, he underwent the RT-PCR test for Covid at a private hospital and was found positive.

“I called up the man, who is a friend of mine, and told him about the report. He said he was sure that he had Covid and so took a flight to Calcutta so that he could be with his family,” said a senior official of the private hospital off EM Bypass.

“I told him that it was a criminal offence to fly when he was certain that he had Covid.”

Passengers flying in from Telangana, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Kerala need to have an RT-PCR negative report before boarding the flight. There is no such requirement for passengers from other states.

“The only way to know whether a passenger arriving from another city has Covid or not is to check his or her body temperature using a thermal scanner,” said an official of the Calcutta airport. So an asymptomatic Covid patient can arrive and enter the city undetected.

Patients’ contacts

The authorities of several Covid vaccination centres in the city were taken by surprise when they found that close contacts of Covid patients had turned up for the shot.

Officials at private hospitals and the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), which is administering Covid jabs through its ward health clinics, said they were regularly facing the problem.

“While talking to some of the vaccine recipients standing in the queue, we discovered to our surprise that someone in the family had recently tested positive for Covid-19. These contacts are supposed to stay quarantined at home and not step out till the quarantine period is over. But they are not adhering to the protocol. They are turning up for the shot without completing the quarantine period,” a CMC official said.

“We are asking vaccine recipients whether they have come in contact with Covid patients recently,” said an official at AMRI Hospitals, which has been facing the same problem as the CMC health clinics.

Officials at vaccination centres said the problem with contacts of Covid patients turning up for the shot was one of logistics.

“If such persons inform us in advance, we can allot special slots to them or request them to take the jab after completing the quarantine period. We will give them priority on that day (when they arrive after completing the quarantine period). But if they stand in a queue with others, there is a risk that others may get infected. Even the personnel at vaccination centres may get infected,” said the official of the private hospital.

Covid patient at OPD

A middle-aged man suffering from Covid and diarrhoea entered the outpatients department of a private hospital on Monday.

“He did not tell the OPD staff that he had Covid. Once in the doctor's consultation room, he said he had tested positive for Covid and was having diarrhoea,” said an official of the hospital. “The doctor told him that he was supposed to be in home isolation and have video consultation or call up a doctor. If the symptoms persisted, he should have got admitted.”

Doctors said they were encountering several such incidents.

“One patient with all signs of Covid walked into the OPD and sat with other patients before entering my room. Ideally, he should have gone to the fever clinic,” said physician Chandramouli Bhattacharya.

Public health experts said Covid patients were feeling free to step out because of lax surveillance and also because the practice of declaring containment zones had been effectively discontinued.

Some hospitals have reintroduced stringent measures for visitors. AMRI Hospitals, for instance, is allowing patients and visitors to enter only after they are giving details of their health to the security personnel in the lobby.

Patient’s taxi ride

A 50-year-old man who tested positive for Covid needed to get admitted to hospital on Sunday evening. The resident of Dhakuria and his relatives first tried to hire an ambulance.

“There was no ambulance available. My brother didn't have a choice and had to travel to the hospital in Phoolbagan in a yellow taxi,” said the patient’s brother.

He had not told the taxi driver that he had Covid. “This way he not only put the driver at risk but several other passengers who would ride the taxi later,” said a public health expert.