Thieves invade, rob home of family in quarantine

The home of the Good Hope, East Coast Demerara (ECD) family in mandatory quarantine for COVID-19 was broken into on Thursday evening, thus raising several concerns.
One of the owners of the house, Suraj Baboolall, who has been isolated for the past 12 days at a quarantine facility, told Guyana Times that health authorities promised them before they left their residence that their property would be protected. This was to be done in the form of regular police patrols.
“About two Tuesdays ago, we were quarantined and they gave us the reassurance that we will have Police watching the home. After the assurance, we said we’re going to move, so we did.”
However, according to Baboolall, this was never done. On Friday morning, a neighbour observed a window was broken and upon further inspection, the back door was found ajar.
“We had gone through the isolation process, quarantine process until this morning. One of the neighbours that always watch the house, they saw the door ajar and they saw like the windows and stuff was broken. When they reached the back of the yard, they saw the back yard was broken,” the man detailed.
The family has not been able to assess their losses since they are still under quarantine. He indicated that the community is prone to robberies and other crimes, which makes security of paramount importance.
“We don’t know what’s missing. We don’t know what really took place. The Police came and they took pictures and then they left. We know the community that we live in. That’s why we know this was going to happen. When I asked my neighbour over the last 12 days, they said they haven’t seen any Police patrolling around the area. They have not seen anyone there,” Baboolall shared.
The family has expressed dissatisfaction that their property was left unguarded, despite reassurances from the health authorities.
“They said they are patrolling. If they are patrolling, how did someone break into our house and take our stuff away. I was in communication with the CMO. He said they will get protection for the house. I did send him a message and he said he will speak with the Minister,” he explained.
Guyana’s first imported case of the coronavirus was 52-year-old Ratna Baboolall, who died at the Georgetown Public Hospital on March 11. To date, four of her family members have tested positive for the disease.
Other relatives were also placed under quarantine as a precautionary measure. The family was awaiting the testing of more samples to determine if they could leave.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), symptoms of this new coronavirus disease are fever, tiredness, dry cough and diarrhoea. While the mortality rate is low, the infection rate is high.