Fighting against Covid, poverty, residents of Bengal village share one mask among family

As the country grapples with the Covid-19 pandemic, masks have become a daily necessity. While a large number of people are coming up with a variety of excuses for not wearing masks, even though they can afford it, a remote village in West Bengal’s South Dinajpur district presents a different picture.

The impoverished residents of the Chotokori village in the district’s Harirampur Assembly constituency are well aware of the dangers of Covid-19. However, poverty does not allow them even to buy plain cloth masks for every family member, let alone expensive N95 masks.

But instead of coming up with excuses the impoverished villagers are trying to wear masks when they go out as much as possible even if it means using one mask repeatedly after washing in families with seven to eight members. However, the use of one mask by several persons goes against Covid-19 protocols.

Locals said that there are some families in the village with two masks for six to seven family members. But they try not to go out together all at once. Mostly two members of such families go out at once wearing the two masks while the rest wait for them to return. When they come back home, the other family members who need to go out wash and dry the masks and then set out.

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“We are four sisters and there are only two masks. So we try not to go out together at once. Two of us go out at a time while the rest wait for them to return. When they return then we wash it and use it,” said a local student.

She said that the masks they have are quite old but her family cannot afford to buy new one.

“I have an old mask. We only wear it when we go outside the village or to the nearest town. That’s all we can afford,” said another resident Sujata Barman.

Another resident of the village said that there are seven members in her family but they have only one mask which she got from school. She said that when more than one member of her family has to go out together, only one can wear the mask while the others have to step out risking infection.