Bite At The Bizarre Bulletin

They don’t appear on the country’s pandemic bulletin board, and thereby hangs a tale. A man in his 70s walks back home from the dead in West Bengal; a 52-year-old in Himachal Pradesh is the lone infection-free man in a village of 42 people where everyone else got infected; a British health worker is giving the cat a run for its many lives, surviving dengue, malaria, COVID-19 and a bite from a king cobra.

First off, a case of misplaced “reports”. Septuagenarians Shibdas Banerjee and Mohini Mohan Mukherjee were admitted to a state-run hospital in North 24-Parganas district, about 20 km from Calcutta, on November 4 for Covid treatment. Mukherjee became critical and was shifted to a Barasat hospital on November 7. But the first hospital sent Banerjee’s papers instead to Barasat, and Mukherjee became Banerjee in the medical records. When Mukherjee died on November 13, Banerjee’s family was informed of his death. The Banerjees “identified” the old man, the body was cremated and the family prepared for his last rites, scheduled for November 17.

Meanwhile, the real Banerjee fought off the virus, but because of the mix-up Mukherjee’s family was told that he would be discharged on November 16. When the Mukherjees reached the hospital, they found a different person. A quick inquiry revealed the obvious. Son Sudip alleged that his father died of medical negligence as the wrong papers led to wrong treatment. Several questions spring from that mistake—like how Banerjee’s family failed to identify his body before they allowed the cremation? A government official explained that bodies are shown to relatives from a distance because of strict Covid safety protocols.

In the cold Thorang village of Himachal’s Lahaul-Spiti, it was a case of lax safety protocols. The village of 42 people congregated at a religious ceremony and all of them, but one, got the virus. That man is Bhushan Thakur and he credits his good health to “strong immunity” and “self–protection” measures—wearing a mask, maintaining hand hygiene and staying away from human huddles. “I stayed in isolation and cooked my own meals. I avoided any contact with my family,” advises the man who had five members in his home testing positive for Covid.

But the art of survival has a better teacher in Ian Jones, a British charity worker who beat coronavirus, dengue, malaria and a potentially fatal bite from a king cobra in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur district, where he worked with charity-backed social enterprise, Sabirian. He has been discharged from hospital and people from his native Isle of Wight in southern England have raised funds for his return. “Dad is a fighter, during his time out in India he had already suffered from malaria and dengue fever before COVID-19,” his son, Seb Jones, was quoted as saying.