"I'm Just Standing There Crying": Medics Suspect COVID-19 Outbreak In Kapyl District

Doctors in overalls visited every house and measured the temperature of the inhabitants.

"They went to the houses, they came to us too, - Sviatlana, a cashier from a grocery store in Novyja Daktarovichy, an agro-town in Kapyl district, Minsk region, says to Euroradio. - They took swabs and tests for coronavirus. They took them from all the teachers, because the outbreak started at school. The teacher and the cleaning lady are lying in the intensive care unit... Pneumonia, bilateral inflammation... There are a lot of people there."

On March 29, doctors in overalls appeared in the villages of Daktarovichy, Novyja Daktarovichy and Vuhly (all in Kapyl district, Minsk region). They went into each house and measured the temperature of the inhabitants.

According to Sviatlana, all those with temperatures above 37.2 were taken to hospitals in Minsk and Barysau. Her husband was also hospitalized - with a temperature of 37.4.

"I don't know yet to which hospital. I'm just standing and crying, - the woman says. - They have taken 15 people from the village. They are also taking away pupils of the fourth and fifth grades".

They say that the virus has been brought to the village by a truck driver, a relative of one of the school employees, who has returned from abroad. Sviatlana says that until March 29 nobody had suspected the coronavirus, although "the village residents have been sick for probably a month".

Euroradio was not able to get any comments on the situation at the school. The headmistress said that she was too busy.

Machine milking operator Anzhela from Novyja Daktarovichy also says that on Sunday, doctors from Minsk and Kapyl were visiting the houses and checking the temperature with the local residents.

"We had no temperature, we were not told to stay at home, - she says. - They said that they wouldn't close the farm anyway. Someone has to milk the cows anyway. We still have to go to work. They gave us masks. A lot of people from Novyja Daktarovichy are sick and in hospitals. Nobody knows if it's Coronavirus or not, they don't tell us about it."