A video recording accusing the authorities of wrongly marking a building as a red building in Babena, Thimphu is going viral on social media. It was recorded by one of the tenants of the building. The Zoning team upon the health ministry’s recommendation marks buildings as red when residents test positive for the Coronavirus.
In the video recording, a man speaks in Tshangla and describes that the building he resides in is wrongly identified as red. BBS reached the location and confirmed that the building was indeed mistakenly marked as a red building.
In actuality, a positive case of Coronavirus was detected from the white building which was not marked as a red building. And its residents were allowed to move freely while the residents of the yellow building that didn’t see any positive case had to stay inside for 12 days. The Zoning team sealed the building as red on February 26. Ten households live in the building.
“We came to know about this only at the end when the isolation period was over. We thought that the authorities must have checked and marked it properly. All this while, people living downstairs thought the positive case was from one of the flats upstairs and vice versa,” said Sonam Zangmo.
“It’s been 12 days since we have been in isolation and it has caused us a lot of inconveniences. It would have been okay if the case was from our building but it’s been detected from the other building. We would be grateful if the authorities do their due diligence properly,” said Lhamo.
They said the authorities should be more responsible as such mistakes can result in severe consequences.
Health minister Dechen Wangmo said there was a mistake since both the buildings were owned by one person.
“There is already a system called Zhichhar app. The moment you log in to this app we log in with the house owners’ Identity Card Number and you know exactly where this flat is. In this case, I think there were the same owners for the same buildings facing each other. So, this is where the moment we put it in the computer, the owner having two buildings, I think that must have created that confusion in the system,” said the Health Minister.
The buildings are marked as red to contain the spread of the virus.
Sonam Tenzin
