An apartment in Vasanthpura ward has been sealed by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) after two residents – a 35-year-old woman and her six-year-old daughter, who returned from the United Kingdom on December 19 — tested positive for the new variant of the coronavirus.
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Banners proclaiming “Home Quarantine – Don’t visit us now” have been put up on the barricades outside.
The civic body has also up barricades up to 100 m on either side of the building. BBMP sources, however, did not specify how long the apartment, which has a total of 15 flats, will be sealed for. While some claimed it would remain sealed for 28 days, others claimed it would be for 14 days.
There was much drama on Tuesday morning at the apartment after the two residents tested positive. Civic officials and local police arrived to take the 37 residents to a quarantine facility. This was after the civic body deemed all the residents of the apartment as secondary contacts.
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However, the residents refused to move to a quarantine facility, and alleged harassment by civic officials. They questioned the need to be shifted when all of them had tested negative.
“The family which tested positive has been in the hospital for over a week now. After they tested positive, the apartment complex was sanitised by BBMP and we were all tested. Let them administer another round of tests, but let them allow us to remain at home,” a resident said.
Police have been deployed outside the apartment and vigil is being maintained to ensure there is no movement in and out of the sealed off area.
BBMP’s Special Commissioner (Health) Rajendra Cholan said as per the Standard Operating Procedures issued by the MHA, the primary contacts have to be admitted in an institutional quarantine facility and closely monitored. “The residents requested us to allow them to undergo home quarantine. We have now decided to put in place the SOPs of quarantine facility in the apartment complex,” he said.