Man blamed for almost half of Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 cases speaks

He has been anonymous for months, but now Prasad Dinesh, linked by Sri Lankan authorities to nearly half of the country’s more than 2,600 coronavirus cases, is trying to clear his name and remove the stigma of a heroin addiction in the root of his ordeal. .

After Dinesh, 33, tested positive for the coronavirus in April, navy sailors were dispatched to his village as part of a military-led task force designated to deal with the pandemic. When they tried to force Dinesh’s contacts into quarantine, chaos ensued, followed by a chain of events that led to at least 1,100 additional coronavirus infections.

These cases, officials said, all come from one person: Dinesh.

Referring to him alone as “Patient 206,” government officials criticized Dinesh on television and social media, blaming him for at least three groups of coronavirus cases, including some 900 navy sailors who were infected after some participated in the operation in the city of Dinesh, Ja-Ela, about 12 miles north of the capital, Colombo.

Dinesh, however, says that his drug addiction, which is considered a crime in Sri Lanka, makes him a convenient scapegoat.

“I cannot accept that I am responsible for infecting so many, including navy sailors,” Dinesh told the Associated Press after he returned home after being discharged from a month’s hospitalization.

Before the pandemic hit Sri Lanka, resulting in an island-wide shutdown, Dinesh worked as an automatic rickshaw driver. But now he can’t find a job.

“Nobody gives work when they find out I’m Patient 206,” he said.

Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said Dinesh had undermined Sri Lanka’s fight against COVID-19. “He is the turning point and he has done great harm to our country,” said Rohana.

Authorities say that on April 5, Dinesh was caught by village residents for a robbery and turned over to the police. Dinesh has not contested the charges that he and others broke into a house in a nearby town to take coconuts that they could sell to buy heroin.

At the police station, Dinesh had a fever and a leg injury sustained during the robbery, so authorities admitted him to a nearby hospital, where he tested positive for the coronavirus and remained for 31 days. The police who made the arrest, Dinesh’s friends, and more than 100 people in his neighborhood were ordered to quarantine his home.

But not everyone complied.

Fearful of the virus spreading rapidly in the densely populated area, the Sri Lankan navy sent sailors to assist health workers. As the sailors approached, some of Dinesh’s associates panicked.

“They were climbing trees, they were trying to jump over a fence, trying to bathe, trying to jump into a canal,” Admiral Jayanath Colombage, a former army commander and member of the national task force to combat the coronavirus, he said in a television interview.

Of the 28 people seized from the community and quarantined, 16 tested positive. Two weeks later, some sailors involved in the operation also tested positive.

Navy spokesman lieutenant commander. Isuru Suriyabandara defended the navy, saying that it had deployed well-trained troops with protective equipment that were quarantined for 21 days after the operation.

The first infection of sailors was reported on April 22. He had gone on leave to a city about 140 kilometers northeast of Colombo. That prompted provincial health officials to isolate 12 nearby villages.

The next day, another 30 sailors tested positive.

With the spread of the virus to different parts of the country where the sailors were on leave, the authorities ordered troops from all branches of the army to report to their camps.

About 4,000 navy sailors were quarantined within a single camp, while more than 200 family members were taken to quarantine centers run by the navy. At least 15 villages were isolated in different parts of Sri Lanka for approximately two weeks, and an additional 1,300 people were quarantined.

Eventually, some 900 navy sailors tested positive, and another 50 infected people were also part of that group. Two other groups also attributed to Dinesh had at least 150 cases of coronavirus, according to authorities, representing a total of at least 1,100 infections at the Dinesh gate.

That’s nearly half the country’s confirmed case load of 2,665, including 11 deaths.

“What to do? Is it our fault for using drugs?” He said, referring to his heroin habit.

Dinesh said he had been using heroin since 2002 but never became “a severe addict.” However, during the coronavirus blockade, he used the drug more frequently and joined three other users in the robbery to raise money to buy more heroin.

Authorities have used the consequences of the raid in the village of Dinesh to escalate anti-drug crackdowns in slums and urban apartments. Authorities say some 300,000 people, about 1.5% of the population, are addicted to drugs.

Dinesh, however, says he is no longer part of that stigmatized group. He said that a beneficial result of being infected with the coronavirus was that his hospitalization helped him kick his heroin habit.

He said he had body aches for about two days. “I did not have severe withdrawals because I was not a severe addict,” he said.

“Now I have completely given up [drugs], “he said.” I don’t even smoke a cigarette. Now I’m always with my two children and I play with them. I feel good. “