Prothom Alo
It was known by all that holidaymakers would rush to their village homes. It happened last year. It was not beyond our imagination that the same phenomenon would repeat this year.
In such a situation, the authorities concerned should have allowed more transports to make public movement smooth.
In addition, there would need to monitor the public transport with a limited number of passengers in compliance with the Covid-19 health guidelines.
In reality, all kinds of transport except the long-route buses are in operation. Such a situation increases risk of coronavirus transmission.
Many people have moved together without following the health guidelines. There is risk of coronavirus transmission throughout the entire trips and it will intensify in future. It can be said that the virus now will spread from the city to the village level.
Definitely the mass movement in the last couple of days has definitely increased the risk of virus infection. Mass movement has been seen all across the country.
Now the people need to be made aware so that any person having the coronavirus symptoms must get antigen tested (Antigen test provides quick result but does not give accurate result without symptoms) and take necessary treatments.
New variants of coronavirus are now popping up in the world. Some of the variants are highly contagious, especially the Indian variant that threatens life by affecting the lung quickly.
Recently, the Indian variant was detected in Bangladesh. As the coronavirus variant infects lung quickly, the patient will require immediate treatment.
Necessary tests should be done as soon as the symptoms are visible. To diagnose the symptomatic patients, it is recommended to conduct the antigen test rather than waiting for RT-PCR (RT-PCR is a time consuming test but it gives accurate result). Anyone arriving in Bangladesh from India must go through the Covid-19 test.
Muzaherul Huq, former regional adviser (South Asia) for World Health Organisation
