Survivor's agony: winning coronavirus battle is tough, beating COVID myths even tougher

The first man who had contracted with the novel coronavirus in Maharashtra had defeated the virus within 20 days. But, the man who is a cab driver by profession has lost his business as his identity has been revealed in his locality.

Pune (Maharashtra): "The entire nation is fighting against coronavirus, but we have to fight the disease, not the patient." This message has been heard by almost all of us while calling our family and friends. But the myths related to the deadly virus seems more substantial if anyone gets infected for coronavirus.

A 35-years-old man, hailing from Pune, had contracted with the deadly virus in March, making him the first such case in the state. The man who has been working as a cab driver in Pune had contracted the COVID virus from a couple who had landed in Mumbai from a gulf country and booked his cab to drive from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport to their Pune based house.

After a week, when the couple tested positive for the novel coronavirus, Mumbai Police, through contact tracing reached to the cab driver and encouraged him to get tested for COVID-19.

The test result results said that the cab driver along with his family had tested positive for the virus. The family members were rushed to a hospital in Mumbai.

After recovering from the COVID virus, the family had returned to their Pune based home in the first week of April.

Winning the coronavirus battle may have been tough, but a bigger struggle awaited the cab driver and his family.

Soon after they returned from Mumbai, life became even tougher due to social boycott of his family and business as someone had busted the identity of their family members in their locality.

"I have two cars. All of them have been standing in the parking area for the last two months. I am almost ruined as no one book my cab fearing of coronavirus", said the cab driver to ETV Bharat with a promise of not letting his identity revealed.

The man said he had defeated coronavirus by keeping his morale high but the attitude of his neighbours had defeated him.

Now, the young man has been selling pulses to meet the demands of his family members.

"I have been facing a tough time as none of the local come to my stall as they fear of getting infected for the deadly virus. I have been busy in pleading my customers to purchase pulses from my stall. But, hardly 10-15 customers get convinced by my efforts" the cab driver narrated the ordeal to ETV Bharat.

Though the cab driver has registered a complaint against the social boycott, but this step too went in vain.