Amid the Coronavirus pandemic when the governments from East to West, South to North are locking down their states, cities and provinces to prevent the spread of the deadly virus that already killed more than 10,000, the mindless Bangladesh government has allowed Bangladeshis living abroad to enter the country freely and move freely without keeping them under compulsory quarantine. The government has no ability to open quarantine centers. We hear that armed forces have also opened quarantine facilities but the people do not know how much prepared they are for the general public.
The cruellest thing is not to hear much about effective steps except keeping people quarantined. Many more steps are needed for dealing with the virus created financial and other problems. Our government seems to think police actions are the solution for every problem.
The government has lately adopted the policy of easy lockdown villages where the newly arrived ones went thus shutting down lives of all the
villagers. The newly arrived ones were asked to remain self-imposed quarantine. Most of them do not know what quarantine means. So they went to village homes to be in the company of their relations.
We are so unlucky to have a responsible government for sensible policies even on life and death issues. The Coronavirus spreads out in Bangladesh through the expatriates coming from the epidemic areas. Since we have no facilities for quarantine for a big number, the government should have suspended all international and domestic flights. We know it is easier said than done. Bangladeshis abroad cannot be stopped entering.
When the government is not prepared then it should try in desperate ways. Our ambassadors in affected countries should have dissuaded our people to delay coming to Bangladesh. They could have engaged with the government concerned. But most of them are incompetent for such diplomacy. We have a sleeping foreign ministry the officials of which are good at accompanying the Prime Minister on her frequent foreign tours. The government is isolated from the people so has become the government officials.
Earlier on Tuesday, Biman Bangladesh Airlines brought back 409 Bangladeshis, who had remained stranded in a Gulf country. Most of the 406 Bangladeshis went to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah Hajj, but nobody knows whether anybody carried the virus or were affected already. Of the returnees, two were sent to a hospital as they were detected with high fever, and the others were advised to stay in self-quarantine for 14 days in their respective homes. When home quarantine has become a farce in the country due to lack of awareness of self- quarantine. So it is not working making it harder to deal with the pandemic.
Meanwhile, two persons were pushed back from Sylhet Osmani International Airport on Thursday. They are of Bangladeshi origin but citizens of France and Portugal. They arrived from the UK via Biman flight BG-202. In the meantime, Biman cancelled all flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Singapore routes—as per decisions of the UAE and Singapore authorities amid the pandemic.
It is so sad the government has failed to clear what facilities in place for availing whatever the facilities might be. The lucky government VIPs will be the lucky ones for the government facilities. So they need not worry.
The doctors and nurses themselves feel unprotected for absence of preparedness and some of them have stopped working for lack of protective gears. They cannot be forced to take care of the patients and die.
The government has now become anxious for getting detecting kits. Detection is useless if there were no facilities for taking care of the detected ones. The most essential item is ventilators. The government is not disclosing how many ventilators we have in the country. We do not think we have enough ventilators for the lucky VIPs also.
The government is not learning to be diligent where it should be to help the general public with health facilities. Please see how the governments in western countries are holding press conference everyday to keep their people informed. We have government spokesmen who have made silly and contradictory statements because they themselves do not know what should be done and they think rightly that our people are fools.
But what is puzzle to our people is how foolish our educated sycophants are? Because they think of themselves very wise in the company they keep.
