SHILLONG: Laban, regarded as the cradle of this town, has been under some turmoil over the past few days over COVID pandemic. Relatively untouched so far, last week after over 550 persons turned up for random testing, 11 active cases came to the fore sending the residents in a tizzy.
The administration has already declared 11 houses a containment area, while there is a heightened feeling of vulnerability among the residents of the locality.
Speaking to The Shillong Times, headman of Laban Edward Kharwanlang said that while there was not a single case upto mid-August, in the later part of August, following a random test done at Motphran a positive case was detected and the patient happened to be a resident of Laban. Cases started trickling in and others case were subsequently detected.
It was last Friday, on September 4, 11 cases were detected out of around 550-559 people who were tested. The random test was also scheduled for the next day but it was cancelled.
Those who were tested positive were quarantined and employees of shop owners who were tested positive are also quarantined while shops are closed.
The Laban Municipal market is open for business and all the shopkeepers were tested. All of them were tested negative.
The rush to get tested to know the COVID status had caused confusion in entire Laban and made it hard for volunteers to direct the people to maintain social distancing while waiting to get tested. The dorbar shnong did not realise that huge number of people would turn up for testing
Kharwanlang said “It was cancelled as there were too many people and maintaining social distance was difficult.
The chairman of the committee has cancelled it until further orders. We did not expect a huge crowd to turn up at the testing. There were others who were not from Laban also”, he said.
Kharwanlang said that the dorbar shnong of Laban has been providing food stuffs to the returnees who had to undergo the mandatory quarantine.
“We are also providing for the poor, the daily wage labourers etc. We are still distributing free essential commodities to the poor almost everyday”, he said.