Concern and anxiety over coronavirus have lead people in Uttar Pradesh, where five people have been infected so far, to call the health directorate helpline with questions about routine daily chores to international travel.
Sample these: “I am invited to a family function, should I attend it?” asked a caller on the helpline on Thursday. “Will talking to someone standing close to me, infect me?” asked another.
Officials said every fifth call at the helpline number 1800-180-5145 was regarding coronavirus.
The worry is so much that questions such as “what should I wear while going to the market” and “till when will coronavirus exist” have flooded the call centre.
“Questions concerning almost every aspect of daily life and its link to coronavirus have been asked. I have myself handled at least 100 such questions, often repeated by callers, from across the state,” said RK Gaur, a call centre staffer.
Some other questions relating to international travel have been made at the helpline.
“I have to visit Vietnam. Do I need to get any vaccine?” asked a caller.
The reply to which was, “There is no vaccine and travel advisory has been issued for Vietnam and several other countries.”
“The call centre is there since December and we are using it to respond to all types of queries regarding various diseases and facilities,” said Dr Rukesh Singh, director general, medical health.
The call centre has four phones connected to the toll-free number and, as one call is being attended, the other phone starts ringing.
“This helpline is for all other assistance, such as safe delivery, vaccination, road accident and also to find solutions to patients who are not satisfied with one of the hospitals. Hence, four phone lines are connected so that no one has to wait,” said another staff.
The number of callers has gone up in the past three days, as information on coronavirus is reaching more and more people, the staff said.
The test report of one person is awaited from National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune and 690 people have been kept under home isolation across the state.
Thirty people have been infected with coronavirus (Covid-19) so far as the government has stepped up its efforts to screen and monitor people and contain the disease all across the country.
Close to 30,000 people have been kept under watch for the illness.
All the infected people – excluding the two in Jaipur and one in Hyderabad – are in hospitals in the National Capital Region (NCR).
These include the Delhi resident who was confirmed a patient on Monday, his relatives from Agra; a group of Italian tourists, and an Indian who worked as a driver for them.
More than 3000 people have died from novel coronavirus, with nearly 100,000 confirmed infections across the globe. The virus leads to cough, fever and, in serious cases, respiratory distress that can turn fatal.
China reported the first cases of coronavirus last year in December and since then it has spread alarmingly outside of the country with scores of countries, including Iran, South Korea and Italy.