Govt Response: Mired in MISSTEPS

The government's response to the coronavirus outbreak has been plagued by inappropriate decisions, delayed actions and muddled thinking -- right from the beginning.

When the virus began to spread at an exponential rate from China's Wuhan -- the ground zero for the global pandemic -- to other countries in January, responsible ministers and government officials in Bangladesh assured people that "adequate measures" were taken and that "we are prepared".

On January 27, Health Minister Zahid Maleque urged the countrymen not to worry about Covid-19 and said, "We are working so that the virus cannot enter Bangladesh. The government is fully ready to face the situation even if the virus infects anyone."

Then again on February 3, he said Bangladesh took all necessary measures to prevent coronavirus from entering the country. "The situation at present is nothing to panic about. Even if it [the virus] comes, we're fully prepared," he said at a seminar in the capital's Segunbagicha.

Those words of assurance kept flowing even after the crisis began to unfold in the country. On March 20, Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud at a press briefing in Chattogram said, "Bangladesh has taken various steps and the situation in our country is still better than many other countries."

Three months down the line, those words appear to ring hollow as the country sees a surge in the number of Covid-19 cases with the measures turning out to be inadequate to fight against the deadly virus.

The authorities got three months. But they could not make adequate preparation and trailed behind in taking decisions like closing airports, sending expats to compulsory quarantine and imposing total shutdown.

There was a clear evidence of lax coordination among the government organisations in most of the steps taken. Many of its efforts now made it clear that the government could not fully grasp the gravity of the situation.

Let's take a look at the steps the authorities had missed and how it mishandled the situation.

In January, when countries like China -- epicentre of the virus at that time -- and South Korea responded with drastic measures, cutting themselves off from the world, the authorities in Bangladesh let flights from China and other Covid-19-affected countries to fly in.

The flight operations continued in Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka until March 29.

At that time, the authorities claimed that they had scaled up screening and testing measures of the incoming international passengers at airport.

The airport authorities, in fact, had only one operational scanner in January and February. Finally, in mid-March, they got six scanners. What they actually had done in the name of "testing" was checking body temperature with handheld infrared thermometers.

Then came the quarantine fiasco.

The government was right to place more than 300 Bangladeshis stranded in Chinese city of Wuhan under 14-day quarantine at Ashkona Hajj Camp after they returned on February 1.

But it did not follow the same protocol when thousands of returnees from many European countries especially Italy, another epicentre for coronavirus, flew to Bangladesh in middle of March.

Without putting them in mandatory quarantine, the government just let the returnees go home, asking them to maintain self-quarantine. But there was no monitoring mechanism whatsoever.

More than 2 lakh people entered Bangladesh since March.

As there was no effective monitoring, these people roamed freely around in their localities and did other chores along with his family members, leaving people in their localities exposed to the virus.

When the reports surfaced in the media, the authorities asked civil surgeons to take help from local administration to force the expatriates to keep in home quarantine properly.

By this time, it was too late.

A number of confirmed cases are now being reported from different districts. Madaripur became one of the biggest hotspots in the country as a large number of Bangladeshi expatriates returned to their homes in the district.

As there was a surge in the number of positive cases, the government in its desperate bid to stem the spread of virus came up with major decision of closing down public and private offices.

On March 23, it announced a general holiday to be effective from March 26. The next day, it suspended train, launch and air services, but kept the public transports open until March 26.

As a result, tens of thousands of people left Dhaka in crammed buses and other transports after having possibly been exposed to the virus.

Experts at that time labelled government's efforts as piecemeal in nature and not carefully coordinated as it did not take adequate measure to dissuade people to stay home before announcing holiday. 

They believe that such an exodus of people could help spread the highly contagious virus to the remote places of the country.

Then came another severe blow to the already fragile situation.

Thousands of garment workers, who went home in hordes as soon as the holiday began, returned in similar fashion on April 3 because the garment owners announced to open their factories.

But as they trudged back to Dhaka in the evening, many of them found their factories closed.

Although the government extended the holiday to April 14, the apex body of the garment industry gave no message to the workers. Instead, they waited for the government to announce the decision of closure of garment factories.

While many of the workers returned and many others stayed in Dhaka, the police closed the entry and exit points of the city.

Finally, the government ordered closure of all garment factories until April 14. But by this time maximum damage may have been inflicted.

When many counties including Saudi Arabia ordered its citizens to say prayers at home, the authorities in Bangladesh kept allowing people to go to mosques.

It took the authorities four weeks since the first case confirmation to come up with an order that allowed only those employed by mosques to offer daily or Juma prayers there.

Even now they seem not to be fully in control. A lack of coordination among government bodies continue to pose a major challenge in implementing the plans.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque, who is the chief of the National Committee on Covid-19, had to express his helplessness, saying nothing other than the health issues were discussed with them. 

People are still crowding market places and thoroughfares ignoring the risk of getting infected while screenings to find out coronavirus positives and isolation units across the country are still not adequate.

Meanwhile, the country continues to see a steady uptick in coronavirus cases.