Panic has set in a posh colony in Secunderabad where the COVID-19 hit techie resides, with the local residents hurriedly moving out of their houses to avoid contacting the virus.
Tuesday was not a normal day for the residents as a flurry of activity was witnessed since morning. Adding to the tense moments were the media personnel, who had made a beeline to the colony, and began to beam live footage of the locality and went into an overdrive trying to describe the situation out there.
Since morning the sanitary workers of Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) rushed to the area and started spraying disinfectant and bleaching powder all around. A double-storied building in the colony became the cynosure of all eyes as it was the place where the techie used to reside along with eight other members of the joint family. The building too had tenants.
Once it became known that the techie was down with COVID-19, the entire family is being quarantined in Gandhi Hospital and is undergoing tests. The tenants too had locked their houses and moved away to the relatives’ places. Soon some more colony residents followed suit.
A colony resident, said on condition of anonymity, said that they were all worried. “What can we do now? We have to take precautions and avoid contacting the disease,” he said even as he requested the sanitation staff to sanitise the area.
Going by the panic created in the very first coronovirus case in the city and State, it is unlikely that normality would be restored in the next few days in the colony.