Coronavirus scare: Mobbed, Chinese man locks himself up in flat in Noida

GREATER NOIDA: A Chinese national locked himself up in his house, twice in 12 hours, at a society in Greater Noida after residents mobbed him, suspecting he had been infected with the novel coronavirus. On Wednesday night, they called in the police and on Thursday, a medical team.
“Residents called us up and told us they suspected a Chinese national had been infected. We got there with an ambulance and a medical team,” said Rajesh Kumar Singh, DCP (Zone 3). By then, a crowd had gathered outside his house and he had locked himself in for more than an hour. The police team asked him to step out of his house. “He opened to door to his apartment at 1.30am and said he had already been tested,” the DCP added.
The medical team, nonetheless, examined him. “We left the society after the medical team was convinced the 14-day incubation period had passed,” the DCP said.
It was, however, only a matter of hours before there was a rerun of the midnight panic. Just as he was leaving for work, neighbours surrounded him again. This time, a team of medical representatives, along with the chief medical officer of Gautam Budh Nagar, got there.
“He had come to Noida on February 2 and had been screened at the airport. He is undergoing treatment for minor cough and cold at Yatharth Hospital. We did not observe any coronavirus symptoms and believe the chances are low because he has been living here for the past month. We told this to the RWA and the neighbours,” said chief medical officer Anurag Bhargava. The RWA secretary of the society later said he had met the Chinese national on Wednesday night. “He seemed fine. He told me he had come down with a cold. He also told me the name of the doctor he had been consulting,” he added.
The medical team left the society after sanitising his flat.
While a case like this is still an aberration, a palpable sense of apprehension has taken over. “Influx” is a word that has suddenly come up, with racist overtones. “There has been an influx of Korean, Chinese, Japanese nationals in Greater Noida of late. Most apartments and houses in Greater Noida are used as guest houses or rented by them,” said a resident from a society along the Noida Expressway who did not want to be named. Sombir Singh, secretary of ATS Paradiso RWA, said the concentration of foreign nationals has to do with the number of multinational companies and IT firms in Noida like Oppo, Vivo and Samsung. “It’s close to work, the accommodations are good and the rents are affordable,” he added.
Last month, along with lists of people who had returned from China in January, societies had also started providing lists of Chinese nationals to the health department. While the intent is one of caution, the prevalent mood is largely an accusatory one. “We see many foreign nationals moving around. These foreigners do not interact with us and stick to their own. Now we are also maintaining a distance after the coronavirus scare,” said SK Jain, a resident of Sector 92.
The chief medical officer, meanwhile, has issued an advisory to all industries and IT firms in the district to scan foreign nationals working in their organisations.
Caution, however, can often mutate into rumours — in case of the Chinese national, for instance. “The person was seen sneezing and coughing. The rumour seems to have spread because he had visited the hospital on Wednesday, where a blood test was conducted,” the society’s RWA secretary said.