Certain decisions cannot help but force us to ask the question: Do authorities truly have the safety of the people of this country in their minds?
One such decision has to be the one to allow the setting up of temporary cattle markets across the country, despite suggestions from public health experts to do otherwise, and despite the fact that Bangladesh’s number of confirmed cases and number of deaths as a result of the coronavirus have continued to rise.
As one expert has said, and we cannot help but agree, that this would be nothing short of suicidal for Bangladesh right now, considering the lack of hygiene and social distance present at these markets.
What was the point of the lockdown or the new zonal lockdown plan if we are to completely the negate their effects by allowing such blatant disregard for the seriousness of the virus to continue?
Did we not learn our mistake from allowing mosques to operate without following the proper health directives?
The authorities have planned certain directives to be followed at these markets during operation to ensure the health and safety of the people, but we all know that these directives will either not be followed or will do little to abate the spread of the virus in environments almost tailor-made for the spread of communicable diseases.
Going forward with this would create clusters which would exponentially increase the rate of infection and, as experts have continuously warned with little effect, lead to a situation that is completely out of our hands.
There is still time to put the health and safety of people first. Going forward with this could be a mistake that costs us many lives.
