Medical workers’ infection exposes blind spot

On Monday, authorities in Guangzhou city, South China’s Guangdong province, issued a statement saying two local medical workers who underwent nucleic acid tests on Friday had tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

That is alarming news, as instances of medical workers testing positive had not been reported with the country bringing the outbreak largely under control.

Besides, hospitals are well-protected spaces where doctors and nurses are more conscious about protecting themselves, which makes them less vulnerable if they do their precautions well.

Also, medical workers themselves getting infected hampers the fight against the virus. That’s why hospitals need special protection; the infection of medical workers cannot be taken lightly.

The cases in Guangzhou show how the novel coronavirus is entering China from overseas and how medical workers are still at risk, underlining the need to better protect doctors and nurses and other health workers.

The hospital must find out if there are some problems with its epidemic prevention and control mechanism. The monitoring departments in Guangzhou, too, must run a check of their epidemic prevention and control mechanism to find out how the virus entered the hospital and infected the two medical workers.

It is also advisable that they regularly test their medical workers.

The actual cause of the infection has to be ascertained and if it is a case of human negligence or carelessness, those responsible should be made answerable.

China brought the novel coronavirus outbreak largely under control sometime last year. Complete victory over the virus might take longer, but we are confident of achieving that because we have ample supplies of equipment and well-trained medical workers.

Of course, that requires us to take strict measures. It is time the local government in Guangzhou checked for loopholes and if any are found, it plugs them, so that no more medical workers get infected again.