Hyderabad: In a heart-wrenching incident, an 18-year-old youth isolated himself in a tree for 11 days as he tested positive for the coronavirus in Nalagonda district of Telangana.
The youth has been identified as Shiva from Kothanandikonda in the interiors of Nalagonda district in Telangana.
Shiva has a family of four and decided to isolate on the tree not to let anyone get affected because of him, With no space to home isolate, Shiva build himself a Covid ‘ward’ – a bed made of bamboo sticks fastened to the branches of a tree in the compound of his home.
According to reports, Shiva had tested positive on 4 May. But given his living conditions and his poor single room house, Shiva had no choice but to isolate himself on the tree. He has so far spent 11 days on the tree.
When contacted, Shiva said, “There was no isolation centre here. Two days ago, they converted the ST hostel into a centre. Up until then we had nothing and I don’t know if there are any such centres in other villages. I don’t think so. What else can I do?”
“I don’t know if the village volunteers told the sarpanch about me testing positive. No one in my village came forward to help me. They’re all scared of the virus … they’re not stepping out of their homes,” he added.
In rural areas, many families share a single room that includes the kitchen and sometimes even the toilet. This makes it hard for Covid positive patients to go anywhere to isolate them.
Ms Kalinga