Youth steals phone from hosp, gets isolated there

GUWAHATI: Amid spiking Covid-19 cases in the state, the theft of a mobile from a patient in the isolation ward of a government hospital has added to the woes of the administration.
Pappu Barman, a 22-year-old youth, sneaked into the ward of the JSB civil hospital in Kajalgaon, the Chirang district headquarters, on Monday night and stole the smartphone of a Covid-19 patient at around 1 am. The police caught him from near his home in Bengtal, about 15 km from the hospital. He was brought to the hospital and quarantined on Wednesday. The authorities are awaiting his swab test report.
“We never thought anyone would dare go inside an isolation ward. We are shocked because the patient was Covid-19 positive ,” the hospital superintendent, Manoj Das, told TOI on Thursday. “Since the patient was in an active stage, we fear the mobile could be a carrier of the virus,” Das added.
What is also worrying health officials are the people who may have come into contact with Pappu before he was caught on Wednesday.